


So Lovely in Red

by xxTigerAvatarxx



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-13
Updated: 2014-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-29 03:17:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 18
Words: 46,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/682107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xxTigerAvatarxx/pseuds/xxTigerAvatarxx
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternative ending to the first anime series. When Al uses the stone to revive his brother, he succeeds in returning himself to the flesh and escapes the ballroom before realizing that the stone had worked for Edward as well.  Believing that he has failed, and that his older brother is gone forever, Alphonse must live with the guilt which consumes him.  Back in the ballroom, Edward wakes up, separated from Al, and believes that his brother sacrificed himself in order to bring him back to life.  He is overcome with grief and becomes Dante and Envy's new "plaything".  Both brothers, lost in their own worlds, must fight all opposition until they can finally be reunited again. **TORTURE FIC** **GRAPHIC NON-CON AND INCEST** YOU'VE BEEN WARNED! RoyEd/Elricest/EnvyEd, with mentions of AlWin, EdWin, Royai, and DanteEd.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

Alphonse Elric

_May 9, 1914_

 

**“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”**

**-Kahlil Gibran**

 

The complex was utterly silent.  Not a breath of wind stirred the thick layer of dust which blanketed the floor boards of the second story bedroom.  The soft pattering of mice running about from one side of the room to the other was, thankfully, muffled by the dusty wood.  Not a sound could be heard within the four compressed corners and, for that, its occupant was grateful.

The room wasn’t anything spectacular: just a place to stay for the night.  The aged windows were cracked slightly to allow the cool breeze to kiss the soft skin of the sleeping figure on the bed, around which, the thin sheets where wrapped so tightly that the boy was almost indistinguishable.  Over the course of the night, the scratchy material had wound itself tightly around the body as he had restlessly tossed and turned with the violence of his nightmare, crying out softly again and again.  His eyebrows were knit tightly together and, though the child’s eyelids were pressed together as much as they could be, the tears still managed to find an escape and seeped onto his quivering cheeks.

With a start, Alphonse Elric shot up straight on the mattress, which groaned loudly beneath him.  His frightened eyes darted quickly around the room, taking in the rustic surroundings which, as he well knew, weren’t the same in appearance as the extravagant ballroom that continuously plagued his nightmares.  As he studied the peeling wallpaper and inhaled the musty scent of his rented bedroom, his ragged breathing began to slow until, finally, he was able to get enough oxygen back into his brain and think clearly. 

The small boy breathed a jarred sigh of relief, before the pain overtook him as it always did, following the dream.  With a sharp cry, he flung himself back down on the mattress and began to sob uncontrollably.  For Al, the aftermath of the nightmares was always the worst part.

Sure, he could handle the steady replaying of his memories against the back of his eyelids; he could handle seeing his only brother, the one who had stuck by him for so long, being pierced with that sudden blade and dying slowly in front of him again and again.  Alphonse could even power through the terrifying moment when he would wake from the memory and struggle to remember how to breathe, the intensity of it all chilling him to his very core.  He could handle all of this.  

What he couldn’t bear... was reality.

He would calm himself down, absorbing the callousness of his new setting and reminding himself that it was only a dream.  _Calm down, Al. It’s only a nightmare.  It wasn’t real... You’re safe.  You’re safe._

Not a moment later, however, the inaccuracy of what his mind had been telling him would begin to seep into his cerebellum, screaming at him from the inside.  The reality of the situation would crash down on his shoulders, nearly splitting his mind open from the sheer pain in his soul.  Because it was at these times when Alphonse remembered that it _wasn’t_ just a dream.  

When the brothers had been young, they had once overheard a tall-tale which an old farmer had been telling down at the market place in Resembool.  While Edward had reminded his brother again and again that what the man had said was only a story, Al still wasn’t able to erase the images from his mind and continuously had nightmares for many years to follow.  Each night, following the night terror, Edward would climb into bed with Alphonse, hold him close, and whisper in his ear:

_“Nothing can harm you, Al.  You’ll always be safe while I’m around, don’t forget that, okay?  Nothing can touch you, nothing can hurt you... Not while I’m still here.  That’s how it’s always been... and that’s how it’ll always be...”_

“But you were wrong, Brother...”  the broken whisper escaped his lips before Al could stop it.  As soon as the tears had dried, new ones began to fill his eyes.  _You said you would always be here... But, now..._

Edward had always been there for Al, picking him up when he fell, always making him feel equal under their mother’s gaze... His entire life, Edward had dedicated everything he did, everything he accomplished, to Al.  Even after committing the taboo, the first priority in his brother’s mind had been to return Alphonse to normalcy first and foremost.  

_I just had a nightmare, Brother... Where are you now?_

He isn’t there.  Al chided himself again and again to remind himself of the fact that his brother was no longer there to hold him as he cried, or chase away his fears.  Edward was no longer there to whisper those ancient reassuring promises in his ear... This was the part of the night terror that was always the most painful to endure: the realization that the nightmare _had_ , in fact, been real, and that his brother would never again be there beside him when he woke up sobbing each night.

Trembling, Al wiped his tear-filled eyes with the sleeve of his nightshirt and stood from the bed, stripping his pajamas from his body as he limped to the shower.  The cold night air hit his bare skin like a freight train, but Alphonse couldn’t be bothered by such a trivial thing.  After all, Edward no longer worried about such matters... Why should he be any different?

He sighed, cranking the shower faucet around before he stepped into the warmth behind the curtain, allowing his mind to numb itself against the onset of emotions which had begun to claim him.  He listlessly stood in the shower stall, letting the hot flowing water droplets cascade over his body, relaxing even his tensest of muscles, and conceded to the pressing memories of _that_ night.  

Behind closed eyes, he watched again and again as Edward reappeared in the brightly lit ballroom, a glint in his eye revealing his preparedness to finish what he had started.  He relived his brother’s battle with the odious creature who had called himself “Envy”.  He recalled the fight down to every missed attack, every word spoken... right down to when Edward had managed to finally pin the beast to the floor and lunge in for the final strike. He remembered the blade... That which had been concealed from the human eye until the perfect moment to strike.  

To this day, Al couldn’t fathom what had made his brother hesitate.  Alphonse couldn’t understand what had made him falter in his attack... He never saw it coming.  

_“BROTHER!”_

With a start, Alphonse felt his body jar violently, causing his eyes to open and the quietness of the night to settle on his body once more.  He slowly reached to shut off the water, which had long ago turned to ice beyond his level of awareness.  His body trembled, lips tinted an icy blue to match his toes and fingertips as he stood, shivering in the cold night air.  

Alphonse undecidedly remained that way for a while longer, trembling visibly in the frigid air, unable to recall how to use his legs.  He no longer saw the shower walls, no longer heard the chattering of his teeth... he was back in his memories, absorbed by the sensation of it all. 

_Edward lay there, dying in his arms... No, not dying.  Dead.  He was already gone... The blood from the gaping hole in his torso soaked through the alchemist’s thin shirt and began to seep through the cracks in Al’s armor, staining it a sickening crimson.  Edward’s  eyes were opened wide, staring desperately at the empty air behind his brother’s head, unmoving... unblinking... unseeing.  Dead.  Cold.  Dead._

Fresh tears threatened to spill over at the memory of his brother’s unmoving, cold body wrapped tightly in his arms.  _I can fix him,_ he had decided at the time.  _I can bring him back.._

But no matter what alchemy he tried at that point in time, Edward was gone and couldn’t be saved.  The only thing Alphonse _had_ managed to bring back from beyond the Gateway, had been his own body.  He hadn’t been able to bring back Edward, his only brother.  Alphonse had stared relentlessly at the boy’s chest, begging for it to move with the breath of life... The life of his brother... returned to the earth.  

But Edward’s body had only begun to grow colder... 

And so, too, had Alphonse Elric’s heart...


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Alphonse Elric

 _May 13, 1914_  

**“There is no greater sorrow than to recall in misery the time when we were happy.”**

**-** **Dante**

 

“Here you are, kid.  One train ticket to Resembool.” 

“Thank you.”  Alphonse Elric reached up, shakily, and took the small rectangular slip from the brusque, grey-haired man at the gate.  With a slight frown, the young brunette boy studied the paper material between his fingers.  The golden design imprinted on the paper appeared... fake... in some fashion, to him... Somehow, not appearing as glamorous as that first train ticket had been all those years ago.

It all happened so suddenly that Alphonse jerked in utter surprise at the abruptness at which the memories flooded back into his brain.

_“Hey, kid!”_

_“Kid!”_

“Kid!”

Just as swiftly as he had been whisked away from the outside world, it all came crashing back down on him, as though the weight of the world had been briefly removed from his shoulders only to be replaced by a much larger planet.  With reality, came the remembrance of Edward.  And with the absence... came the tears.

_He’s not here... He’s not here..._

The passersby stooped down to his level as sobs began to wrack through his frame, and asked if there was anything they could do for him.  Had he lost his mom?  Well, yes... a long, long, time ago... Was he lost? If their definition matched his, then, yes, he had been lost for quite some time now...  But all the pestering questions soon subsided as one-by-one, they slowly realized that this little crying boy didn’t want any of their help.  There was nothing they could do for him, after all... Nothing would bring Edward back.

Trembling slightly from the aftermath of his memories, Alphonse tucked his legs beneath him and used them to push himself up from the ground.  He wobbled a little, as he still had yet to familiarize himself with his new flesh and blood limbs, but didn’t let the waver of confidence show on his face.  With new determination, he strode from the crowd of worried civilians who had gathered around him and walked out into the rain.

Al loved the rain.  He always had.  Since getting his body back over a week ago, it had rained everyday... not always a downpour each day... but it was still rain.  The feeling of the small droplets on his skin, the smell of the air when a storm was fast approaching, even the _sound_ which the rain made as it splashed onto the awaiting pavement _..._ Though Alphonse wasn’t even sure if he believed in religion (as he knew his brother had abandoned it long ago), he couldn’t help but succumb to the idea that the angels were weeping for his loss.  That the rain, falling from the heavens day after day, were their tears of sorrow... And, for the rain, he was grateful.

He had no one.  When Edward had gone... he had taken everything with him.  The remainder of his family, his only friend, his reason for living... Only the memories seemed to grow stronger.  And it just _killed_ him all the more...

Alphonse, himself, was not military personnel... He, now that his brother had passed, had no connection to the friends they had made over the past few years of their lives together.  Roy Mustang was no longer his superior.  Riza Hawkeye was no longer the watchful Lieutenant.  Maes Hughes... now deceased... was no longer the happy-go-lucky man who had been the first to treat the brothers as equals.  As though, their mistake _hadn’t_ changed their lives... or who they were as people.

But, now, none of that mattered.  There was no one left to turn to... Even if there somehow _was_ the possibility of maintaining the friendships between the military officers and himself... he didn’t even know where to find them.  Most recently, Mustang’s crew had been called off to take part in the Northern skirmish along the Drachman border; the general, himself, heading up to lead the front lines... and Al was left alone with no one left to comfort him.  No one had heard the news yet: about Edward... about the underground city... for the soul reason that Alphonse kept it all to himself.

The small droplets of rain cascaded down his cheeks, masking the salty tears which had only just begun to fall, as the sky opened up wide with a loud crack of thunder.  Tears mixed with rain as the young Elric boy stood with his back to the station, face tilted up to the heavens... searching for some kind of answer.

As he stood, he cried.  The harder and faster his tears fell down his face, the more he was consumed by his grief... the more he remembered...

_Two sets of feet pounded against the muddied street gravel, carrying the two brothers as fast as they could be allowed to run.  The sky roared loudly with wind and thunder as the thick raindrops danced off of the boys’ exposed skin and formed pools of water on the road, which Edward was all too happy to race through... sending the contents of the puddle flying in every direction._

_“Brother! You’re getting me all wet!”_

_“Al, you’re already wet!”  This retort earned a low whine from the younger brother as Edward harshly jumped through another puddle, soaking Al’s pants through to his skin.  Alphonse grumbled audibly at his now saturated trousers, but was cut off abruptly as his mind formed an evil plan, eyes focusing on a rather large puddle directly ahead of him._

_With a triumphant shout, Al kicked off of the ground and leapt into the air before landing heavily in the center of the oversized pool.  Much to his surprise, however, the puddle was much,_ much _deeper than it had first appeared to him and Alphonse began to stumble and eventually tripped over his own feet, earning a face full of mud.  Instead of roaring with laughter at his brother’s blunder, Edward quickly caught up to the younger boy and sat down beside him, gently wiping the mud and tears from his face._

_“You big dummy...” Edward wrapped Alphonse up in a tight embrace as his brother’s tears slowly subsided, “You didn’t even get me wet...”_

_“Not even a little?”  His dismay was evident in his voice and Edward sympathetically glanced down into the silvery-bronze irises which so differed from his own, releasing a small chuckle._

_“Not even a little, Al...”_

With a start, he was brought back to reality and unconsciously surveyed the empty space on his left.... No Edward.  As one final tear yielded to the overpowering force of gravity and left the harbor of his eye, Alphonse turned on his heel and marched back inside the train station, shaking the rain water from his hair and continuing on to his dictated platform.

_Winry, forgive me... Please.._

_“Now boarding train 665 to Resembool.  All passengers please move to the designated platform.  Now boarding train 665 to Resembool.”_

Never in his life had Al thought that on the day which he finally returned home, back in one piece, that he would be making the journey alone...

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

General Roy Mustang

_May 13, 1914_

 

**“Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.”**

  * **Christina Georgina Rossetti**



 

Roy Mustang finally returned to consciousness in a dark, unfamiliar room, obscured by night.  From what he could presume, the four walls were white-washed and reeked of disinfectant.  It had been many years since the General had been admitted to a hospital... but the atmosphere in the room was still the same as it had been all that time ago: the emptiness of the room almost suffocating him as he struggled to recall his reason for being here.

Upon hearing the rustle of clothing directly to his left, Mustang sat up suddenly and jerked his head in the direction of the noise, his eyes softening as they landed on Riza Hawkeye’s sleeping form.  

The lieutenant was slumped over in a fold-out chair which had been positioned at his bedside... and, if he knew her as well as he thought, the chair hadn’t been without an occupant for the past few days.  Smiling slightly at her protectiveness, he reached over, ignoring the pain piercing through his left shoulder, and gently tucked a lock of honey hair behind her ear, causing her to stir in her sleep.  His breath caught and movements stilled but it was all to no avail, and her eyelids fluttered open.

There was no indication that she actually _saw_ the General staring at her as he was... no suggestion in her expression to make him think that him waking up had been a change... Her face showed no anger, sadness, relief, or even happiness at his return to consciousness.  A simple, small smile graced her lips and her eyes flickered with something he couldn’t quite place, before she silently stood and floated over to the sink.

Roy bitterly stared after his subordinate, desperately trying to place the emotion he had seen flash through her eyes.  It was an emotion he had seen many times before... Yet, at the moment, could not seem to discern it.  His thoughts were swiftly cut off as a delicate hand grasped his, and turned the palm out to face the ceiling.  Before Roy could open his mouth to speak, a pearly styrofoam cup was thrust into his hand and, judging by the look on the Lieutenant’s face, he was expected to drink from it. 

Hesitantly, Mustang cleared his throat, effectively breaking the silence.

“How long-?” He managed, gruffly, taking a sip of water from the cup to ease his blistering throat.  Hawkeye once more took her position in the chair beside him, eyes sympathetically boring into his as she breathed out the response of a week.

_A week?  He’d been unconscious that long?_

“And what of the Furher and his family?”  He begrudgingly inquired, shifting his good eye down to look at the blanket beneath him, lazily balling the material into his fist.

“No one has heard from him, Sir.  It was reported that, a few days ago, Mrs. Bradley came to the hospital and checked out her son.  No one has seen them since then...”  The amber irises danced around the room hesitantly as Roy suspiciously quirked an eyebrow in her direction.  Lieutenant Hawkeye wasn’t one to become flustered over a simple report.

“What else, Lieutenant?”

“I... It’s just that...”  Riza swallowed loudly and breathed deeply before she finally continued.  “At the time of your confrontation with Furher Bradley, it is believed that the Elric brothers devised a mission of their own and, upon departing, disappeared from military surveillance, sir.  Though our personnel has attempted to locate the boys, all efforts have been futile... As of now, we have no leads as to where they could have gone...”  The silence which settled on the room like a thick cloud seemed strangely ominous, and at the sharp widening of the General’s eyes, Hawkeye promptly dropped the formalities.  “I’m sorry, Roy.”

Resting his chin atop his laced fingers, as was typical of the General, he exhaled slowly before dramatically throwing the sheets from his body and swinging his legs over the side of the bed.

The Lieutenant made an indignant noise of protest in the back of her throat, and ran over to the opposite side of the bed where Mustang was tenderly testing the temperature of the tile with his toes.  As Roy moved to stand, his miscalculations caused him to stumble and fall into Hawkeye’s arms which had been held out in the circumstance that the General would insist on being a stubborn jackass per usual.  

Angrily, Riza threw him back onto the mattress, which creaked noisily under the return of Mustang’s weight, and placed her hands to her hips.

“Just what do you think you’re doing?”  She sputtered hotly, glaring down upon her superior as though he had truly lost his mind.  Roy leaned back on his hands, tenderly reaching up to pick at the IV lines trailing from his arms and sighing defeatedly.  Just when Riza thought the General was prepared to give in and slide back beneath the covers, he spoke up:

“Did I ever tell you the story of how Edward Elric became the youngest State Alchemist in Amestris?”  Hawkeye couldn’t mask her surprise at his sudden question... Had he ever told her the full story?  She knew that he had been the one to find Edward in the beginning, and had been the man to push for his instatement in the military... and, of course, everyone had heard about how the child had passed the skills portion of the exam...

But what had started it all?  How had the man, sitting before her, even chanced to _meet_ the hot-headed teenager from Resembool?

Curious to know the answer, and his reasoning for confiding in her now, of all times, she deftly shook her head and took a spot next to him on the bed.  The General mustered a sad smile, remembering that fateful day in Central when his life had changed forever.

“It was the letter that started it all,” he began, sadness dripping from his voice.  “It was sitting atop one of my many mounds of paperwork one day and, by chance, I happened to read it instead of tossing it like I had all the others.  The letter had been composed by two brothers from a small town out in East Area, who were in search of their father, Van Hohenheim.  In it, they explained how they planned to send a letter to each of the addresses from which their father had sent them a letter, hoping someone at the destination would know where to find him and send him home...

“Their mother was dying of the plague, you see.  And these young boys thought that, maybe, if their father returned home in time, everything would be alright...

“But, by the time their letter had actually reached me in Central, it was already too late.  Unknown to me, the boys’ mother had passed due to her sickness, and the gears had only just begun to turn in their heads as to how they could bring her back with their alchemy... the forbidden deed: human transmutation.”

Riza gasped suddenly, feeling the tears leak from her eyes as the sad tale began to consume her, and reached across Roy’s lap to grasp his good hand, holding it tightly in hers.  Refusing to glance up at her, the troubled smile returned and the story continued to pour from his lips.

“I wasn’t sure what I would find by journeying to Resembool, but the letter had piqued my interest... I had known their father years ago, and had been searching for the man since his disappearance months before the letter had arrived.  Those hastily scribbled down words on the parchment had re-kindled my fire to find Hohenheim and, so, I decided to pay the Elric brothers a little visit. 

“The first train to Resembool wasn’t for another week and, thus, I returned to my work, going about my daily life, until I was able to leave.  I don’t believe I had even told anyone where I was off to... I just left the office and only returned once my task had been completed...

“On the day I arrived in the rural town, it was raining heavily and there was the unmistakable stench of alchemy in the air.  I quickly learned that the Elric home wasn’t far from the station and started off in their direction at once, fearing the worst.  What I had feared, an alchemist doctor experimenting on the poor woman, was nothing compared to what I discovered at the house...

“I let myself in, bits of the doorframe giving way from the aftermath of the performed alchemy.  The entire house reeked and I had to keep my head down to stop my eyes from burning.  What I saw on the floor, nearly stopped my heart.”  Roy paused dramatically and Riza vowed she saw the ghost of a tear slip down his cheek before he once more turned from her.

“Blood.  Too much to be tolerated, even by the strongest of stomachs...  There were... bloodied handprints lining the walls, thick, dark footprints staining the wooden floorboards.  And an indisputable trail of blood leading from the basement. Nervously, I made my way down the stairs, praying to God I wouldn’t see what I expected to find.

“If you had told me back then that it was possible for a person to lose more blood than that which I saw upstairs and still live, I would have lit you up in a second’s time for being a complete idiot... But as I took my first step into the haze of the lower level, my foot nearly slipped on the liquid covering the floor...

“Th- there was so much... So much blood, Riza!  And the smell... It was worse than all of Ishbal had been!... But what made me sprint from the room as fast as my legs could carry me, was what I _saw._

“It- it wasn’t human...  I don’t know what it was, but I know it wasn’t human...  It just... stared at me... like it wanted me to do something... But I- I couldn’t!  It wasn’t human!”  The tears cascaded without end now.  The General didn’t seem to even remember that he was telling this to anyone in particular... he was surrendering to all the anger and fear that he had felt that day, finally allowing it to be released from the secrecy of his memories.  Unbeknownst to him, his subordinate cried with him, for him, trying to ease his pain in any way she could.

Then, to her utter and complete _horror_ , Roy began to _laugh._ Her hand jerked instinctively away from him as she looked at the General with concern lacing her orbs...

“I went to find them, you know... After all they had just gone through, I figured ‘why not add a little more to their plates?’... When I found them, Al had carried Edward all the way to their friends’ house: Winry and Grandma Pinako.  They were the only two people the brothers had left in the world... 

“Edward was neatly bandaged when I arrived at the house, his face appearing peaceful and almost... comatose..  His brother sat in the corner of the room, watching on in confusion and utter sadness as the old lady worked furiously to save his brother from certain death.  All I could do to keep from breaking down at the sight of the eleven year old boy, who lay dying in the bed before me as a result of alchemy, was to marvel at the work he had done to attach his brother’s soul to the suit of armor..

“So I offered him a job as a State Alchemist... though Edward was unconscious at the time and I was kicked out because of it by the old bat, _I_ was the one to plant the idea in the brothers’ minds to find the Philosopher’s Stone with the resources we could provide them... I was the one who began everything.  I’m responsible...

“... And now you’re telling me that no one has any idea where either of the Elrics are...  So if I get up to try and assume my _responsibility_ of looking after those boys, are you really going to stand in my way?”  At long last, his midnight eyes locked with hers, and she found herself unable to look away from the sadness she saw there.

“General... sir...”

“It’s my fault they’re here, Lieutenant.  It’s my responsibility to keep those children safe...  And I’m going to do just that, with or without you.”  Defeated, Riza Hawkeye stood from the bed and strode over to the door to retrieve his coat, before returning to his side and helping him slip it on.  

As one, they gathered their necessities from the hospital room, slid into the hallway, and disappeared into the night.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Alphonse Elric

_May 14-15, 1941_

 

**“The worst part of holding the memories is not the pain. It's the loneliness of it. Memories need to be shared.”**

**―** [ **Lois Lowry** ](http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2493.Lois_Lowry) **,** [ **_The Giver_ ** ](http://www.goodreads.com/work/quotes/2543234)

 

The journey back to his hometown seemed to take forever... Or maybe it only appeared that way due to the pit in his stomach growing larger and larger with each passing second.  Swallowing back a nervous lump in his throat, Alphonse nearly cried at the heavy weight pressing down on his chest. 

_Winry....._

He could feel the blood passing through his heart harden and freeze into ice as he began to think of the actual task of _telling_ Winry that Ed was... that he was...

The lump returned, making it hard for Alphonse to breathe or swallow...  Just thinking about the blonde mechanic made his heart ache with sadness.  As the train approached the small station in the distance, seemingly growing larger as the seconds flew by, Alphonse could hear nothing but the ringing in his ears.  He hardly even noticed when the locomotive had come to rest at the platform, the passengers, surrounding him, standing to gather their belongings and depart from the cabin.

The heavy feeling in his heart preventing him from rising too quickly, Alphonse tentatively reached for his arm crutch, resting forgotten across the seat beside him.  His shoulders shook with the sigh that escaped him, curling his fingers around the familiar brace and walking determinedly from the train, leaning heavily upon the metal for support.

The young teen stood there for a long while... not moving from the platform, not speaking to anyone, just simply standing at the station, not a bag to his name.  As the train began to depart, Alphonse realized with a sinking feeling that there was no other way to go now, but forward.  He couldn’t very well return to Central, at he very least not for a few weeks time...

_Winry....._

Not entirely sure where his legs were taking him, his body began to move of its own accord, strolling into the green countryside with renewed fervor.  It wasn’t until Alphonse had reached the peak of the third rolling crest, that he realized he wasn’t being brought to Winry and Granny Pinako, but to the remnants of his home.

Sitting, abandoned, atop the hill in front of him, the ruins of his childhood home lay before him, the silence immediately overwhelming its former occupant.  Why had he drug himself _here,_ of all places?  Alphonse realized, all too soon, that this would be his first return home without his brother to accompany him...

This would be his first time, standing amidst the remains of their most horrifying mistake... alone.

Reluctantly, his feet continued to carry him to the crumpled heap where he and his brother had once run and played so happily together.  Off to one side of the house, their favorite swing began to sway eerily with a strong gust of wind, causing its supporting branch to groan with the return of movement below.  Upon coming to the very top of the hilltop, his legs suddenly gave out beneath him, and Alphonse crumpled to the ground in a sobbing heap.

“Mom... I’m so sorry!  We never meant for this to happen! We- we never meant for any of this to happen!... We just wanted to see you smile... just one last time.”  Alphonse knew that no one could hear him, crying relentlessly into the dirt below, and the silence blanketing the hilltop only caused the tears to fall faster.

“Edward’s gone, Mom... though I suppose he’s with you now, isn’t he?  I... I tried to save him, I did!  But I was too late... I was too weak...”  Trembling, his fingers scraped across the grassy dirt and clenched together in a fist.  “Are you happy, brother?”  It was so quiet... So very quiet... and he was so incredibly alone...

“Are you happy?!”  Alphonse began shouting hysterically into the wind, releasing the pain and anger he had been suppressing inside his chest for the last eight days.  The wind howled back, in response, swirling leaves and bits of earth around his frame as the young boy screamed angrily at the darkening sky.

“Dammit, brother!  We were supposed to see mom together!  You told me we’d bring her back together and that we’d be happy again!  You said we’d always be together!  We were always supposed to be together, no matter what!... YOU LIAR!”  His voice was drowned out by the wind as the sky began to cry, millions of tiny raindrops splashing across the Elric’s face and rolling off to each side before dropping back to the earth.

“You... lied....”  Alphonse collapsed to the ground, his arms losing all strength to support him, as his grief and exhaustion finally carried him away.

 

%%%%%%%

 

He knew he must look awful.  Having finally succumbed to sleep on the flooded ground beside his former home, his clothes had become waterlogged and muddy with the dirty rain which had danced around him all through the night.  Alphonse had briefly contemplated the horrible idea of simply lying there, in his pool of sorrow, and allowing his hypothermia to finally end his life then.

Yet, there he was, standing in the presence of the only Auto Mail shop in Resembool, reassuring himself, non-convincingly, that he could do it.  He could tell Winry the horrible news of Edward’s passing, and watch her kind face crumple with despair.  He could look her in the eyes and tell his childhood friend that his brother would never again break another of her beautiful creations... ever, ever again.

Sighing in defeat, Alphonse turned on his heel to head back to Central, thinking maybe he would send her a letter instead, when he was tackled by a large black ball of fur.  Crying out in shock, the boy fell to the ground, taking the crazed mutt with him, and bit his lip as his cane dug sharply into his side.

“Den, no!”  He felt the weight suddenly removed from his back and he brought his head out from beneath his arms, no longer needing to protect himself against the onslaught of sloppy, wet dog kisses.  As he struggled to sit up, weakened muscles not yet used to being attacked so abruptly, Alphonse was met with a pair of concerned blue eyes.

“Winry...”  The girl standing over him gasped sharply, shock radiating through her features as she immediately recognized the man in front of her.  Having not seen him in the flesh for so many years, she had almost not recognized the face she had known all her life.

“Al.... Alphonse?”  Winry gasped, tears springing to her eyes as she took in the aged features of her friend.  “Is it really you?”  Sheepishly, the boy beneath her nodded and managed a small smile, knowing their tearful reunion wasn’t going to last much longer.

“You’re back!”  Without warning, Alphonse was suddenly tackled by a mass of blonde hair, once more being knocked to the ground with a undignified grunt.  Eyes widening in shock, he soon realized Winry had begun to cry on his chest, holding onto his still-soaking shirt as though he could disappear at any moment.  Comfortingly, he wrapped his arms around her sobbing frame, holding her as close as he dared.

Giggling, she leaned up and planted dozens of tiny kisses across his face, pecking her lips on any skin she could reach as if to say, “I missed you, dummy.”  Alphonse couldn’t contain the laughter which erupted from his chest as she continued to attack him with affection, knowing full well that the kisses were out of friendship, and nothing more.

His laughter soon grew hysterical and she stopped her attacks, laughing with him well after his own had changed into sobs.  The grief he had released the night before had only been the surface of his bottomless suffering.  Winry mistook his tears as those of happiness and reached around him to embrace him once more before jumping up and offering him her hand.

As he reached up to accept the offered support, Winry asked the one question that stopped his heart:

“So, where’s Ed?”


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

Alphonse Elric

_May 15-16, 1914_

 

**“Love can sometimes be magic.**

**But magic can sometimes... just be an illusion.”**

**-Javan**

 

“So, where’s Ed?”

The silence which befell the two childhood friends was unsettling as Alphonse couldn’t form a substantial response to Winry’s question pertaining to his brother.  The blonde immediately observed Al’s speechless state and cast a worried glance in his direction as she helped him into a standing position, but decided not to pester him about it.  She wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know what about Edward had caused Al to tense so visibly.

Noticing the arm crutch lying a few feet from where the two stood, Winry quickly stooped to pick it up from the ground, dusting off the metal before returning it to Alphonse, worry coloring her expression as she saw him actually _use_ it, not realizing how weak his body must have been after all the years without nourishment.  Carefully, Winry helped her friend along as they made their way inside the shop, the older of the two informing Alphonse that granny had gone to Rush Valley to replenish their supplies and wouldn’t be home for another few days.

“She would love to see you, Al.  Granny really worries about you two boys, off on your own all the time without so much as a letter or phone call to let us know what you’re up to...”  The young engineer continued to make small talk as she poured two cups of hot tea for them to drink.  Setting the kettle back onto the stove, she relented, “It gets awfully lonely here... Will you be staying long?”, before drifting over to the table where Alphonse was sitting.

As she handed the young boy his cup, her hand lingered a little longer than necessary and she offered him a slight smile before taking the seat across the table from him and staring at her own cup of swirling warmth.  Neither spoke for quite some time, simply looking down into their mugs and occasionally sipping at the liquid, the silence which settled over the old house feeling... almost comforting... in some regard.

“It really is nice having you back, Al.  Even if that hard-headed brother of yours didn’t want to make the trip with you... It’s nice just the same.”  The shattering of porcelain rang throughout the kitchen as Al abruptly dropped the cup, its contents splashing messily across the wooden floor boards.  Sitting in utter shock, Winry stared at the puddle of tea before shifting her gaze to gawk at the trembling boy sitting opposite of her.

“Al... what-” she was interrupted suddenly by a loud sob which broke through Al’s lips.

“He’s not coming back home, Winry.  I’m so sorry...  It’s all my fault.”  Without registering the meaning behind his words, Winry ran to him, carefully avoiding the mess on the floor, and wrapped her arms around her friend, trying to rid him of his hysterical state.

“Shh... Al, everything is going to be alright!  It’s okay!”  Stroking his soft brown locks, Winry swiftly dragged the boy onto her lap and sat, rocking him, on the kitchen floor.  She held him as he cried into her arms, whispering soothing nothings in his ear, wishing she could help him more.

“It’s not okay.”  The whisper was barely audible, and Winry bent lower in a desperate attempt to understand Alphonse’s words.

“It’s not okay, Winry.  It’s not okay.”  Tear-filled eyes raised up to look into her cerulean irises, and she started at the pain and grief she saw lacing his orbs.

“Brother... he’s...” the remainder of his sentence was choked off by a loud sob breaking from his throat, as tears streamed more fervently down his face.  In her heart, Winry could hear Alphonse continuing on and finishing his incomplete speech, nearly shattering her already aching center, but knew that she needed to hear the words for herself before she could truly believe...

“Al... please, Al... what happened?”  Winry hadn’t even realized she had begun to mimic Alphonse’s tears until her own rain splashed onto the boys cheeks.  “Where’s Ed?  Where is he, Al?” 

The absence of any explanation on the part of Alphonse was more than sufficient to solidify her suspicions, and her only response was to grip the young boy tighter in her arms and continue to rock him as her own sorrow combined with his.  Winry was beside herself with grief... to know that Alphonse Elric, the only thing she had left besides Granny, was now completely alone in the world.

Edward was _gone_...  There hadn’t even been any warning to suggest the brothers had been doing anything abnormally dangerous.  But maybe that’s what made it all so hard to accept...

Wordlessly, Winry scooped up the now sleeping boy in her arms, realizing his human body wasn’t accustomed to handling the torrent of emotions swirling through him at the loss of his only brother, and carried Alphonse up to her room to lay him on her bed.  After one final glance at the brunette sleeping before her, eyes still knit together with his affliction, the blonde finally turned to leave the room to find respite on the living room sofa downstairs.  

Then, thinking better of it, she returned to the bed and climbed under the covers with Al, wrapping her arms around his sleeping form and crying herself to sleep.

 

%%%%%%%

 

At some point, in the middle of the night, Alphonse awoke to discover Winry’s unconscious form lying beside him in her bed.  Small beads remained resting on her eyelids from her tears earlier, sparkling ominously in the moonlight streaming in from the window behind him.  Tucking a lock of hair away from her face, Al didn’t even notice when his friend had woken from her slumber to gaze at her companion.

As her sight landed on Alphonse’s face, she sighed dejectedly, muttering something about wishing it had all just been a stupid dream, and reached up a hand to caress the smooth skin lining his jaw, causing the boy to tense and shift his gaze down to her from the wall he had been previously staring at blindly.  Tentatively, Winry traced her fingertips over the teenage boy’s lips, marveling in their tenderness, and opened her mouth to say something to him before quickly snapping it shut again, lowering her eyes from his.

“What is it, Winry?” the voice beside her ghosted, causing her irises to meet his once more.

“He’s really gone... isn’t he?”  To her complete disappointment, she received only a nod in affirmation from her friend.  Allowing one more tear to slip down the plane of her face, she returned her gaze to his, only to be met with the matched sorrow she and Alphonse shared.

“It will probably sound silly...”  She began, shyly, keeping their eyes locked together, “... but when I look at you, Al, it’s as though Edward isn’t really gone.  Because I see him inside you...” Experimentally, she touched her lips, just slightly, to his. 

Both friends remained completely still: Alphonse, in shock and uncertainty, and Winry, in wait of the boy’s response to her display of affection.  Then, to her utter and absolute surprise, Alphonse leaned forward and again captured her lips with his, a gesture which she more-than-happily returned.  Their embrace became more heated, lips clasping together with the untouched passion neither knew they possessed.

Of course, Winry and Alphonse both knew that the inner fire propelling them forward to so intimately clutch at one another’s warmth, had not been fueled by physical attraction, or by any love shared for each other.  Neither Winry, nor Al, felt “that way” about the other... but when they looked at each other, they saw bits and pieces of Edward neither could deny themselves, and so, too, came the inexplicable need to surround themselves with anything that reminded them of him. 

As Al looked into Winry’s eyes, he could clearly see the love she felt for his brother...  The love for the boy which the two friends shared.  Likewise, when Winry now looked at Alphonse, all she saw was Edward... and the similarity the two brother’s shared.

And it was for this reason that the young girl made no noise of protest as Alphonse rolled her onto her back...

 

%%%%%%%

 

The next morning, Alphonse Elric woke up alone... something which his mind almost preferred.  After all, if Winry _had_ been sleeping next to him at the time he roused from sleep, he would have to immediately face the fact that it wasn’t all a dream.  He would have to admit to himself that he...

_Soft lips clashed together, as trembling, needy fingers worked desperately at each other’s clothes..._

Cold dread settled over the young alchemist, and he abruptly sat up in bed, looking for something to cover himself with.  He was suddenly filled with an overwhelming amount of guilt, and self-loathing.  He had _slept with Winry..._ his childhood friend, and brother’s love interest, nonetheless!

The saddest part of it all was the fact that he had no idea how he was supposed to tell her that last night had been a giant mistake... What if it had meant something to her?  They had both lost their virginity to each other... but somehow Alphonse couldn’t bring himself to see what had happened as a terrible occurrence.  They had both needed the contact... Although they had both used each other in the worst of ways, after losing Edward, the two friends desperately needed a way to release their sorrow and anger and... frustration...

His first time hadn’t been at all as Al had imagined it... Wet from the constant falling of tears, and angry at nothing in particular, the encounter had only left him feeling worse than when they had started out.  Al suddenly realized, with a start, that, during the intimacy, he hadn’t even minded when Winry had whispered his brother’s name instead of his own...

In fact, hadn’t he been the one to shout Edward’s name as he reached his peak?

Alphonse shook himself, trembling... There was no way he would have done that!  Just because his brother was no longer here, and Al missed him so very dearly, didn’t mean that he would have wanted to have sex with Edward... or imagine him in Winry’s place...

... Would he?

Thinking back, Al’s eyes widened in utter and agonizing horror at the realization that that was _exactly_ what he had done.  He had forced himself to believe that it was Edward’s writhing form beneath him as he thrust into the heat relentlessly, pouring all his emotion and love into each searing kiss.  It hadn’t been hard, after all, with the two being so similar: the blonde hair, the small frame... Al released a small shiver as the truth slowly dawned on him.

He was.... in _love_... with his _brother_...


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

Major Edward Elric

May 18, 1941

“The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being.  
His heart withers if it does not answer another heart.  
His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.”

-Pearl S. Buck

Everything hurt.

His arms ached, his legs throbbed, even his eyelids stung. Parts on his body, whose existence he had previously been unaware of, were screaming at him... But the worst pain, was his head.

Edward felt as though, maybe, Envy had ended up missing his torso with the deadly blade, and had hit the alchemist’s brain in its place. His whole world spun. The boy’s vision refused to focus on any one object in the room, seeing double... even triple, of everything. It took all of his strength just to lie there, breathing: one eye propped open to stare at the high ceiling, the other kept shut to bathe in the sea of blackness.

Not having any means to track the ticking hands of time, Edward Elric lay atop the silken sheets, focusing on nothing more than keeping his breath even and his mind clear. He didn’t want to think, he didn’t want to feel...

He didn’t want to be... Not if the world was this painful.

On impulse, Edward reached up with his right arm to rub the sleep from his pained eyes, but soon realized that his limb wasn’t responding to him. With a start, he was suddenly aware of his body: the silky sheets rubbing on his bandaged torso, chafed wrist scraping harshly across the rope which bound his left arm... and his right arm... gone. Destroyed.

Without being able to pinpoint the reason, Edward was suddenly crying, an overflow of tears cascading down his features as he cried out into the empty room. The memories began to flood his mind... but they were so hazy... He couldn’t even make out what was happening in the blurred remembrances.

Releasing an angry cry of frustration, the Fullmetal Alchemist began to struggle desperately against his restraint, gritting his teeth against the pain. Steadily, almost escaping his notice, the thick rope stained a deep shade of crimson as the raw skin began to blister and break with the force of his endeavor, his right shoulder joint flopping uselessly against the mattress. His breath came in sharp, short gasps as drops of his own blood began to drip, mockingly, onto his lips and cheek.

The universe was taunting him... that much he was certain of. For the first time in his life, he was genuinely afraid. Everything around him... was foreign. The calming honeydew walls and gently wafting lace curtains, the silk sheets below him, even the soft, pink ribboned scars decorating his torso, fresh from his latest battle, were not his own. How could they be when he couldn’t even discern where they had come from in the first place?

It was as though he was walking through a thick fog, going nowhere but in circles. Each time he thought he was getting closer to the answer, that which he was searching for would simply vanish from view and he would be left alone...

Alone... he was alone.

And, yet, he could have sworn that, somewhere in the disheveled pile of his memories, he had seen Al’s armored form beside him... His baby brother, trapped forever in a humanoid tin can. Fresh tears leaked from his eyes as he thought of his brother... of Alphonse... living, day-by-day, with the burden of Edward’s mistake.

I’m so sorry, Al... please, I promise I’ll bring you back. I’ll make it up to you... Just... please... come back to me.

Edward lie on the strange bed, completely still, for as long as it took him to remember what had happened to his little brother... where he had gone... His pupils danced behind his closed eyelids, as though the inside of their coverings would give him all the answers he needed to find. Slowly, deliberately, the images flashing through his mind gradually sharpened and crystallized before fading into the haze once more... frustrating the young alchemist to an unbelievable extent.

Growling, Edward grit his teeth together sharply and desperately tried to slow his breathing... instantly feeling his muscles relax in his dream-like state. As if he were in a trance, the events replayed hesitantly in his mind’s eye and he was suddenly standing outside his body, watching from the distance, on the eve of his death.

Reality descended upon him, chilling him to his very core as his eyelids were thrust back open with a start, his limbs and torso covered with a blanket of cold sweat and trembling violently at his remembrance.

I... I..... died?

Each tear which cascaded down his cheek caused his body to jerk furiously with the resurfacing of another image in his mind, brought to the forefront of his consciousness by his sorrow. As intent as he had been to remember that night... the one which had separated Alphonse from himself and had landed him in this unfamiliar setting... he now wanted it all to just disappear. The memories which consistently brought him back to the ballroom, had caused something inside of him to break entirely, causing his mind to shut down everything in his body which wasn’t required to keep the boy alive.

Silently... he lay there. The only thing he could hear was his own breath escaping his lips in soft, short bursts. The only thing he could feel was the steady drumming of his heart in each of his large arteries, the one in his neck throbbing especially painfully against his throat.

But what he saw... was not the pastel painted walls; not the high ceiling above him, seeming as high as the tallest mountain top... but his memories. Flooding through him like water breaking through a dam... filling him, tormenting him... consuming him.

He watched as his own body fell from Envy’s blade. Envy... who had shown Edward his true face... the face which had the likeness of his father: the man who had left them behind. He watched as his brother, lying in the center of the transmutation circle, stood, shaking with the emotion overtaking him, and walked to

Edward’s dying form with determination radiating from the suit of armor. He watched as his body, now completely devoid of his soul, was lifted into his brother’s trembling arms, leather gloves tracing over his brother’s features in a way which can only be described as complete desolation...

And, finally, he watched on as Alphonse decisively used the Philosopher’s Stone to bring Edward’s soul back from the Gate.

There was no question in his mind that, even though the stone had done it’s job (unless Edward was somehow in Hell, after all)... his doting brother hadn’t stayed long enough to see the Fullmetal Alchemist’s chest begin to rise and fall with the return of life to his body. Though Alphonse had always been the optimistic brother of the two, Edward knew that sticking around, if only to try to convince himself that the elder was alive, wasn’t something Al would have done...

Despite the fact that the younger Elric was still a child and, therefore, naive in many ways, Alphonse had never warmed up to the idea of fooling yourself into believing that the impossible was possible. The brothers had each read the same books all those years ago. They both knew that, even with the Philosopher’s stone, human transmutation still remained an inconceivable science. Edward had discussed the topic with his brother a few months ago, lamenting over the fact that, even if they did manage to find the stone and use it to return Alphonse to normal, there was no guarantee that it would work... And so had begun Al’s quest to repair Edward’s body first and foremost: a persistent argument which neither of them ever won.

As he decidedly gave one last vigorous tug on the ropes which held him, a clicking resounded from the door to his left, causing his movements to still and breathing to all but stop. Eyes wide and focused in alarm, Edward Elric could do nothing to defend himself as the hallway door swung open in one fluid motion, baring the young boy to the horrors his captors had in store for him...


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Major Edward Elric

_May 18, 1941_

 

**“There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year's course.**

**Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word 'happy' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”**

**-Carl Jung**

 

The heavy wooden door swung open, creaking dramatically as the base of its frame scraped across the worn floorboards.  Without any hesitation, the restrained boy flopped his head back onto the bed and scrunched his eyes tightly together, praying that his captor would mistake him for being asleep and let him alone.

But Edward Elric, being who he was, never had luck on his side.

Soon, the putrid scent of burning flesh and pine filled his nostrils, causing his eyes to water and breath to catch in his throat.

“Why are you pretending, Edward?” The boy breathed in his ear, jerking Ed’s eyes wide in trepidation.  “Is it because you think I won’t notice your heart racing in your chest?  Silly boy, I can practically taste your fear and pain... And, oh, you can not imagine how good it feels on my tastebuds!”

Edward arched his back from the bed, lunging for Wrath’s throat as the boy danced away less-than-gracefully with his still-marred skin covering half of his body and new auto mail limbs clanking noisily with his movements.  Seething, Edward replaced his back atop the sheets, having come to the realization that moving so suddenly had not been the smartest course of action for his recovering body.  His head swam, blood pounding furiously in his ears as he struggled to push down the rising bile in his throat, feeling momentarily nauseous from the pain racing through his protesting muscles.

The mattress groaned in disapproval as the weight of another was added to its surface, situating themselves on Edward’s right-hand side.

“So, Pipsqueak, how’re you feeling this beautiful morning?” Envy called out to him, as though he were an elderly man who was hard of hearing.  Biting back a cry of discomfort emanating from the large scar adorning his torso, Edward simply laughed in response.

Frowning at the Fullmetal Alchemist’s modest level of functioning, the Homunculus balled up his raised fist and brought it back down squarely on the boy’s most prominent injury.  Edward’s mouth flung open wide in a silent scream, tears springing to the corners of his eyes as he saw stars.  The agony that was coursing through him was worse than any pain he could have ever imagined and it must have been several minutes before his lungs were able to once more process the air flowing in and out of his body.

When the young alchemist was finally able to think straight with the renewed oxygen flowing into his brain, he managed to flash a weak grimace in the creature’s direction, briefly noting the rusty taste filling his mouth.

“You’d better watch yourself there, Tiny.  Your brother dearest may have stitched up your outsides, but even with the Philosopher’s Stone, he couldn’t manage to fix you up internally.  And after all your brother sacrificed...”

Envy’s words struck something deep within the youth, shock radiating from every feature of his being as the implication behind the Homunculus’s remark descended upon him.

“Al... Where is he, you Bastard?!” The Elric boy cried out desperately, drops of blood flying from his lips, eyes frantically searching Envy’s pale back as if, somehow, Alphonse was hidden beneath the flesh.  Much to his outrage, the green-haired creature calmly stood from the bed, retracing his steps to the door he entered from, lazily waving a hand behind him with the simple reply of, “gone”.

“Envy!”  The whimper was no louder than a whisper of wind but, at the falter in his steps, Edward knew the Homunculus had heard it.  Back turned to the hostage on the bed, Envy abruptly came to a stop mere inches from the door.

“You _really_ want to know, Ed- _kun_?”  He questioned, placid eyes turning over a shoulder to glance at the human behind him.  The widening of Edward’s tear-filled eyes was the only response Envy received, taking the boys silence in affirmation.  With a sigh, the pale being turned once more to face his captive, one hand placed delicately on the door knob, the other resting indolently on his hip bone.

“Fine.  If you _really_ want to know, I suppose I have no right to keep it from you... He _was_ your brother, after all...”  Edward started at the reference to Alphonse in the past tense, but said nothing as Envy continued.  “As you lay dying, he took you in his arms and insisted on bringing your soul back from the Gate... despite our warnings.  He should have listened.  Your fool of a sibling had _no inkling_ how to even use the Stone... let alone perform human transmutation with it!  The Stone, as we had predicted, reacted violently against your brother’s alchemy... bringing you back, yes... but taking him in your place.”

Edward bit back his sobs, not even bothering to hide the tears which now freely fell down his face.  His sorrow filled his very soul, the pain of his loss almost completely destroying him.

“You’re... you’re lying!  You son of a bitch!  You’re lying!”  The Fullmetal Alchemist’s anguish echoed through the chamber, resonating back to him with an equal amount of grief as he had put into it.

“No matter what you choose to believe, Pipsqueak... It will never change the fact that your brother is gone, and that you are our new _plaything._ ”  His words were abruptly followed by the slamming of the door.  

But Edward knew he wasn’t alone...

Dante had stood in the corner of the room from the beginning, watching on as Envy and Wrath had elicited the boy’s sorrow, forcing him to believe their every word.  And why shouldn’t he?  He had no one left to turn to... only her and her Homunculi...  They would be his family now.

Knowing that the teenager on the bed could sense her presence, Dante resigned herself to stepping from the shadows and acknowledging him.

“Edward...”  He refused to face her, knowing very well that this monster was his reason for being here.  Silently, Dante strode over to the bed, gliding her finger tips over the soft sheets as she edged closer to her prize.  She sat down beside him, casually leaning over and pressing herself flush against the contours of Edward’s body as she bent to whisper in his ear.

“Do you remember what I told you back in the ballroom?” Bewildered, the boy’s eyes widened in terror and his breathing became suddenly labored, knowing full well what she was referring to.  He screwed his eyes tightly together as Dante removed her weight from the bed to discard her robe, the only article of clothing she had been wearing.  With a groan, Edward felt her body heat return to his proximity, and he breathed instead through his mouth, refusing to smell the acrid scent of her decaying body.

Her lips found his, and his eyes flew open in protest and disapproval as Dante’s tongue snaked its way inside of his mouth.  He could feel her lips smile against his as the slimy muscle traced over his molars to taste the remnants of Edward’s blood still lingering there...  

The Fullmetal Alchemist had half a mind to bite down hard so that she could settle for the taste of her own blood instead, but realized that doing so wouldn’t get him anywhere.  Nothing would.  No matter how he contorted his body to try to get away from the woman, he was utterly and completely... helpless.  Tied up and prepared to be used by her, as her... 

Edward swallowed hard... He truly _was_ Dante’s new plaything _..._

_“What a shame. I was looking forward to entering this girl’s body, and making love to Hohenheim’s son...”_

Feeling a new wave of tears pressing against his eyelids, the woman above him smiled victoriously as Edward quietly began to break down.  Slowly, she began removing his pants and underwear, teasing him, preparing him further for the act which was to come.  His clothes soon joined her robe on the floor, and he quickly clamped his thighs together, feeling exposed and unnerved by her lustful gaze, raking across his naked form.  With an audible gulp, Edward struggled desperately against her hands which searched to pry his legs apart, whimpering up at her pathetically as they accomplished their goal.

Against his will, his body began to react to her touch and he shivered reluctantly as her nails traced a pathway from his jawline to the hardening organ between his legs, which had involuntarily opened up further to grant her better access.  For the first time in his life, Edward ultimately surrendered to his vulnerability, allowing Dante to dominate him and take his innocence... the only thing he had left in this world...

 

**%%%%%%%**

 

Long after the woman beside him had succumbed to unconsciousness, Edward Elric lay there, wondering just how much hatred their God could possibly possess for one small boy from Resembool.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

General Roy Mustang

_May 19, 1941_

 

**“For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, "It might have been!”**

**-John Greenleaf Whittier**

 

Guilt.

That was the emotion he had seen, flickering in Riza’s eyes, before they had escaped from the hospital.  The exact reason for causing such an emotion to fill the Lieutenant, General Mustang could not fathom... but it was guilt nonetheless.

He had first seen the emotion in her brown eyes on the eve of her father’s death, blaming herself for his fate, which she could have done nothing to prevent.  Then, again, in the crumbling land of Ishbal; her expression had been worn and tired, bags surfacing under her eyes from the horror she had experienced throughout the war... the face of a killer.  At that time, the fault she had burdened herself with had been almost overpowering...

But not even the shame he had seen during the war could rival the magnitude he had seen in the hospital and, he couldn’t help but wonder, what event could have possibly triggered it?

Over the past week, he had attempted to extract the information from his subordinate, even _demanding_ she explain her emotions at one point after he had become exceedingly frustrated... but nothing had worked.  Riza bottled up her reasoning behind the guilt she felt like a toxic illness that could contaminate all of Amestris if she were to release it.

Mustang hadn’t had an overwhelming amount of time to focus on Hawkeye and her emotions, as the week had kept him busy: searching, constantly searching for some sort of clue that could lead him to the Elric brothers.  Increasingly, he became bitter at the thought of never  finding any leads... of course, the Lieutenant was doing her best to assist him but, every so often, when the General would absentmindedly play with the eyepatch covering his left eye, or reach up to idly massage his shoulders, Riza would become lost in thought and stop all work immediately.  The guilt tainting her expression was always the hardest for Roy to watch...

After this continued, time and time again, the General finally decided that her mood swings had gone on for long enough, and confronted her.  As they sat in the Central library, eyes flying wildly over each individual page, searching for something hidden within them that would have set the Fullmetal Alchemist off on his abrupt chase, he absentmindedly played with the scarred tissue marring the area around his eyepatch and heard Riza stand abruptly beside him.

Sighing, he temporarily shut the large history encyclopedia he’d been reading and followed after his subordinate as she hurriedly disappeared around the corner. 

“Lieutenant!”  Mustang’s voice echoed throughout the nearly empty library, which was silent, per usual.  The corner of his mouth threatened to turn upward at the startled jolt which a young private failed to suppress not two bookshelves down from where he stood.. Hawkeye stopped in her tracks, the impatient tone lacing his voice evident among other such emotions.

“Lieutenant...” Roy began again, once he was sure he could hold her attention, “the guilt I see in your eyes, day after day, it’s... it’s because of what happened to me, isn’t it?”  Riza turned a shoulder to face him and searched his guarded frame with pained eyes.

“Sir...”

“Answer the question, Riza!”  His angered voice reflected all the pain and guilt which she felt and immediately startled her as it breathed her first name... even if they were in a casual setting with the intimacy of just the two of them, the most endearing title Mustang would relent to call her was her surname.  To hear him address her so... unusually... was, in every sense of the word, unsettling.

“I couldn’t protect you... You almost _died_ that day, all because I was too late.”

“But I didn’t.”  He countered sullenly.  Not only had his suspicions been confirmed by his most loyal Lieutenant, but he had also learned that the guilt hadn’t dissipated any in the past few days.  The honey irises rolled up towards the ceiling before Riza Hawkeye ultimately averted her eyes, refusing to meet the stern gaze of her superior.

“Riza...” he tried, fighting the urge to adjust the scratchy black patch covering his eye.  “Lieutenant, look at me, please.”  The reluctant woman met his midnight eyes and huffed a little, knowing full well where this conversation was leading.  Roy quickly grabbed her left wrist, pulling her closer to him, and stared determinedly into her eyes, daring her to look away.

“I’m here.  I’m not in the hospital fighting for my life, I’m not some vegetable... I can breathe, move, and speak on my own, and that’s thanks to you.”  She opened her mouth in protest, but Mustang quickly cut her off.  “We both know Archer wouldn’t have stopped where he did... even if he thought I was dead...  if you hadn’t shown up.  You saved me, Hawkeye.  You were there in time... and I owe you my life for that.”  

The woman before him sniffled a little, showing an emotion- a side of her- which Roy had never before seen.  It was unnerving and comforting all at the same time and so he ghosted his fingers up to her shoulder before giving it a light squeeze.

“I’m here, Riza...  And I need to know that you’ll still have my back, no matter what we face from here on out.”  The General smiled gently at his subordinate, meeting her honey gaze with his own.  “Will you follow me?”  The smile was returned after a pause, and Hawkeye snapped her heels together before saluting the officer.

“Straight into Hell, if you so desired, Sir.”  

“That’s what I like to hear, Lieutenant.”  And when Mustang strode back to continue his work, she followed him without prompt.

 

%%%%%%%

 

He was growing increasingly frustrated with the tediousness of this labor and began (not for the first time) to wonder how the sixteen year old alchemist managed to research for hours, even _days_ , on end without rest.  It was infuriating and the General slammed the halves of the overwhelmingly sized literature shut with a low growl when he discovered that he had read the exact same sentence repeatedly for over ten minutes.  The information just wasn’t sinking in.  It wasn’t registering.

If the sharp wrinkle in his Lieutenant’s brow was any indication of her own progress, then this library was in immediate danger of being burned to the ground.

“Nothing.”  Hawkeye suddenly spoke, snapping the notes shut to emphasize her point.  “There’s absolutely nothing here that has been of any help in finding those boys, and I don’t believe that we will be finding anything useful anytime soon.”  Mustang rubbed the white gloves over his eyes, ignoring the faint burn which rose on his eyelids from the rough texture of the cloth, and sighed loudly.

“What do you propose that we do, Hawkeye?”  He practically wailed.  “No one has any goddamn clue where those boys are and I’m not willing to just sit mindlessly when it’s possible... and very likely, that they could be in danger.”  The blonde seemed to deliberate for a breath, before walking to the space behind the General.

“The last place we saw Edward was by the riverfront, isn’t that right?”  He glanced up at her, but her eyes were to the library window, absentmindedly staring at the outside world.  Roy placed his head in his hands and ran them back and forth across his face and hair, tousling the midnight locks.

“Yes, Lieutenant, you are correct.”  

“Then that’s where we’ll begin.”  His eyes snapped open at the woman’s suddenness and Mustang sharply stood from his seat and turned to face his subordinate.  The onyx irises were filled with an inner fire which screamed desperation and exhaustion.

“You think we’re just going to find the boy skipping rocks across the water?  He’s probably long gone by now and, based on the fact that he was hard enough to find when he was running from Liore, I doubt he’s left behind any clues as to where he went!”  At a stern glare from the librarian, Roy lowered his voice and leaned back against the wooden surface of the table.  “Those Elrics are becoming a real pain in my ass...”

“And, yet, you do so much for them...”  The General raised his eyes from the carpeted floor and looked at his Lieutenant, who was gazing down sympathetically at the tired man.  Of course, they were both exhausted.  After days of looking through the stacks of books at Central Library, combined with that lack of sleep and desperation to find the missing brothers, it was no wonder their energy was completely spent.  Roy sighed.

“As I said before, I’m the one who started them on their journey looking for a way to restore their bodies... It’s my fault that they’re in this mess.... It’s my responsibility to help them out of it.  I’ll do whatever it takes.”  A long bout of silence stretched between the two soldiers and the only sound within the four walls of the building was the occasional shuffling page turn from the young private nearby.

“Sir,” Hawkeye began, “I don’t think Edward would have gone far from the area where we dropped him off.”  Unconsciously, Mustang huffed and crossed his arms and ankles, placing his full weight on the table top.

“And why’s that?”  He lifted his gaze to the hardened blonde in front of him, rearranging his body into a more comfortable position under her scrutiny. 

“Well... He asked us for a ride, didn’t he?”  The superior nodded, politely waiting for her to continue.  “Why would he want to be dropped off any further than walking distance from where he was headed?  It wouldn’t make sense...”  He quirked a brow.

“And you believe he’d still be there?  At the place he was set on going to?”  The woman gave a curt nod in affirmation.

“I don’t see any reason as to why he would be elsewhere, General.  And even if he isn’t there, it doesn’t hurt to look for leads at the place he disappeared.”  With a sigh, the Flame Alchemist righted himself and took a small step towards his subordinate, who never faltered under his gaze.

“Well then, Lieutenant, it appears we have ourselves an alchemist to find.”  He flashed her his signature smile, the one which always made the ladies swoon.  Lieutenant Hawkeye was the only exception of this rule.  The General gathered the rest of his belongings without breaking eye contact and smirked.  “I’ll entrust my back to you if it’s not too much to ask.”  Riza snapped into a perfect salute, every inch of her screaming ‘model soldier’ back at him.

“Of course, Sir.  You can count on it.”

 

 

 

 


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Major Edward Elric

_May 19, 1941_

 

**“But even so, every now and then I would feel a violent stab of loneliness. The very water I drink, the very air I breathe, would feel like long, sharp needles. The pages of a book in my hands would take on the threatening metallic gleam of razor blades. I could hear the roots of loneliness creeping through me when the world was hushed at four o'clock in the morning.”**

**\-- Hakuri Murakami _, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles_**

 

His nose itched.  Of all the things in the world that could be bothering and mocking him in this most dismal and hopeless of situations, the universe had placed the responsibility solely on his nose.  Every fiber of his being screamed at him to subdue the annoyance which was slowly overpowering his every sense, but he contended against the urges knowing that he had no other option but to let the sensation fester and spread.

Edward Elric was a complete and utter mess.  Despite the fact that he had been _raped_ the night before, Envy had been sure to give him a nice reminder of his insignificance in the world by dealing him a rather raw beating after the child had regained consciousness, at which point, he had _also_ informed the young alchemist that he had “lost” Edward’s clothing.  The boy was left alone, naked and shivering in an unlit corner of the large room he had been moved to sometime during the night.  

That was how he had been roused from sleep, early this morning, before the sun itself had even risen from the horizon: with the impact of Envy’s fist on his right cheekbone, sending him reeling.  Feeling dazed and utterly confused by his changed surroundings and by the fact that his head had collided with the stone sometime immediately following the punch, Edward struggled to see straight as the blows continued to reign down on his recovering body.

If he had to describe Hell to anyone in the world, that morning would have been the very description he’d have used...  With the Homunculus’s superior strength, Edward could feel each of his ribs crack and shatter upon the impact of Envy’s fist on his torso.  Though he tried to struggle and place himself beyond the creature’s reach, the soreness he continued to feel from the previous night’s events left him breathless any time he made the simplest of moves.  And so he was left at the mercy of the Homunculus... and eventually fainted from the pain.

Hours later, he regained consciousness, and released a sigh of relief upon discovering that he was, indeed, alone.  Upon conducting a surface examination of his tender body, Edward concluded that he had a few cases of non-worrisome internal bleeding around his ribcage and right leg.  He also found nearly all of his ribs to be damaged in some way, and determined the broken bones to be the cause of his internal bleeding on his torso.  

His leg, however, was another story.  Virtually, every inch of skin on the alchemist’s tanned limb was now a revolting shade of purple or blue, darkening as they came closer to the source.  

The sight, alone, made Edward want to scream.

The lower half of his right leg, once normal, was now angled perpendicular to Edward’s thigh, with the knee collapsing in on itself where Envy had brought his foot down on it with all the force he could muster.  The bone, a pearly whiteness visible atop the dark indigo flesh, had protruded so far from the outer casing of his kneecap that it was now scraping against the bound auto mail on his opposite leg.  A cold sweat broke out all over his body as he stared at his deformed limb and the Fullmetal Alchemist suddenly began retching onto the floor beside him, his body screaming in opposition as his broken ribs began to shift with the heaving of his stomach.  

Thankfully, his mangled knee wasn’t bleeding in excess so he knew he’d be safe for a while, but the fact that one of his arms was completely _gone_ and the other was restrained high above his head gave him the overwhelming feeling of helplessness which he just couldn’t handle. 

For the first time, in a very long time, Edward began to cry... What else could he do?

He was cold; he was alone; he was hungry; and his nose _itched._   Not to mention the fact that his wrist and ankles had been tied in a manner such that his back was scraping against the stony wall no matter what angle he forced it into.  The blood from the many scratches along his spine and broken ribcage ran freely down his back and mixed together with the already-drying, red liquid staining the floor beneath him.

The tears which escaped him weren’t violent or harsh, but silent.  The soft liquid streamed down Edward’s face continuously without a single utterance from the boy.  Refusing to think about any one thing in particular, knowing it would only lead to self-pity, the Fullmetal Alchemist focused on staring at the redness which perpetually flowed away from his bruising body, wishing more than anything to just float away with it.

The creaking of the staircase across the room snapped his attention away from his own injuries, and his eyes lifted slowly to meet the eyes of the Homunculus now standing before him.  Seething, his anger grabbed ahold of him and Edward furiously jerked his head away from the malicious creature, choosing instead to scowl at the wall.

“What is it that you want now, Envy?”  The loaded question barely slipped through his tightly grit teeth, and the alchemist was startled when he heard a laugh emitted from the place just in front of him and he suddenly whirled around to come face to face with the monster himself.

“Dante-san told me that it was my turn to have my fun with you, Edward-kun.”  The creature grinned at him, violet eyes portraying a hunger which rested deep within his being...  A hunger which hadn’t yet scared the young boy until this very moment when he was forced to stare the Homunculus dead in the eyes.  The hunger frightened him... For it wasn’t a normal emotion to see in Envy’s eyes.

Startled as the Homunculus drove Edward’s left forearm into the stone wall, the Fullmetal Alchemist attempted to kick at his assailant, temporarily forgetting that his ankles were tightly bound.  As the boy’s body jerked violently with the force of his willed attack, the bones in his right leg gave a sickening crunch, causing a pained shriek to escape Ed’s lips and tears to spring to the wide eyes.

"My-my, Chibi.  If you had tried this hard back then, you might have been able to save your brother."  Edward gasped sharply at the accusation, gritting his teeth hard against the pain in his leg.  Envy’s violet eyes gleamed in the darkness as his smirk fell into a serious expression. "I guess you didn't care about him as much as you thought."

"Shut up! Don't think for a second that you know anything about me!" Angry tears threatened to escape his eyes but he held them back.

"Oh, but you're Hohenheim's brat so why wouldn't you just abandon family like it was nothing?" That comment caused a large wad of saliva to be launched into the homunculus’ eye.

"You don't know anything! I'm nothing like him!"  Envy drove his knee into the alchemists abdomen, effectively removing the air from Edward’s lungs by doing so.  Tears sprang to his eyes, but this time, Edward had no strength left to contain them.  The hot liquid spilled down the planes of his cheeks as his body slumped to the ground, the chain around his wrist being the only thing holding him against the stone wall.  Suddenly, the green haired devil leaned over Edward’s shaking frame, pressing his body close to the younger boy’s and whispering maliciously in his ear:

"If it wasn't true then it wouldn't bother you so much." Edward opened his mouth wide in mid-protest, eyes flashing dangerously with rage.  Seizing the opportunity, the Homunculus stuffed his hand inside of the alchemist’s mouth, depositing a small green capsule at the back of Edward’s throat.  Feeling his gag reflex kicking in, the blonde struggled beneath the creature above him and swallowed hard, reluctantly taking the pill into his stomach.  Envy sat back with a smirk, retreating his arm back from inside Edward’s mouth and chuckling in malice as the boy began to convulse around him, the drug already beginning to gain control of Edward’s stomach.  

Envy took his chance to wrap the young alchemist in a searing kiss, thrusting his tongue deep down Edward’s throat.  Despite the pain which now radiated through his body, Edward continued to buck and thrash about in Envy’s grip as the creature ran possessive fingers down and around his abdomen.  Through the abusive kiss, Edward managed to gasp and cry out his objection:

“Envy!  No!.... Please... Stop this!.... Stop!”  Envy growled and pushed away from the boy, briefly slapping him primitively before hotly spitting on his face.

“Shut up, chibi-san!  I can’t work with that annoying mouth of yours running all the time!”  With the outburst, came searing pain shooting through Ed’s body, forcing his mouth open in a silent scream as Envy pressed his full weight down onto the boy’s injured knee.  His vision swam and flashed interchangeably between the room and total blackness.

“Consider that a warning, pet.  Talk some more if you want to see what I can really do to you!!”  Edward only released the most pitiful of whimpers in response, and so Envy continued his work down the blonde’s torso, dipping his tongue down into the hollow of the boy’s throat and using the muscle to trace over his veins.  Each touch caused Edward to shiver involuntarily and he continued to try to jerk away from the persistent hands of his attacker, slowly winding lower and lower down his body...

Until they finally reached their prize...

Letting out a strangled cry of shock and disgust, which was muffled by the return of Envy’s mouth, Edward writhed and gasped as the creature’s lithe fingers began to probe his entrance, thankfully ignoring Edward’s still-sore member.  Beginning with two, Envy smirked as he thrust his fingers in and out of the young boy, refusing him the comfort of lubricant.  No... that would never do... Envy wanted to see the alchemist tremble and scream beneath him.  Without allowing Edward any time at all to adjust to the intruding fingers, the Homunculus quickly added a third, mercilessly digging the digits into his depths and relishing in the sheer joy of watching the evidence of his enemy’s pain flow onto his fingers, staining them crimson.

“You’re mine, Edward-kun.  And after I’m finished with you, no one will ever want you.”  Envy’s hot breath was in his ear, surrounding him, choking him, as his lower half completely radiated pain... It was all making him dizzy.  He didn’t even feel Envy placing himself greedily at his entrance, looking over Edward’s disorientation with complete satisfaction before roughly thrusting himself into the warmth.

Back arching off of the wall, the victim couldn’t suppress the scream which tore from his throat.  He had thought the fingers had been horrible, but this!... It felt as though his entire body was being split in half!  The pain spread throughout him without end, destroying his whole world as Envy began to thrust deep within him.

“N... no!  Please!  Envy!”  The outburst did not go unpunished and, in fact, Envy had been waiting for it.  The creature halted his motions before deftly impaling his left hand inside the boy’s diaphragm, grabbing hold of two ribs and yanking them from Edward’s convulsing body.  The scream which echoed in the room was reward enough for the Homunculus and he resumed thrusting inside of him, increasing his pace and ferocity ten-fold, screaming down at his captive as he reveled in the pleasure the tight warmth granted him.

“Did I not warn you, you stupid boy?!”  Envy shouted over Edward’s hysterical sobbing.  “You belong to me!  The faster you learn that, the easier your life will seem!”  Angrily, he flipped the blonde onto his stomach, shoving Edward’s face into the stone wall and causing the boy’s legs to cross over one another and painfully dig the auto mail into his broken knee.  With a grip that was sure to leave lasting bruises, Envy lifted Edward’s hips off of the floor and, once more, buried himself to the hilt within the screaming teenager.

The homunculus wouldn’t last much longer, Edward sensed through the pain.  His vision was steadily blurring with the blood loss and tears, and his throat was incredibly hoarse from screaming.  But screaming was the only thing that didn’t seem to bring him any additional pain from his assailant...  And so Edward continued to scream.

He screamed when Envy bit down on his left shoulder as he reached his climax.  He screamed when Envy pulled his now flaccid member, dripping with blood, from his anus.  He screamed when he accidentally breathed his brothers name, in sheer delusion, and earned another, much more violent, round with the Homunculus.  He even screamed two hours after Envy had left the room, finally satisfied with his work on the young State Alchemist.

He still screamed long after his voice had left him, leaving him only with strangled whispers to release into the emptiness of his room.  Because, you see, no one was there with him this time.  There was no one left in his life to hear his screams of agony... to even care.

_Dante leaned in close to him as her hips ground tightly against his, earning a shudder of pleasure mixed with disgust from the young alchemist._

_“Your brother died trying to save you,” she whispered in his ear, tongue darting out to trace the hollow of it as she continued to impale herself on him.  “His death was terrible, Edward... When he came back from the gate, he had managed to repossess his own body as well as your soul, but of course.... equivalent exchange...._

_“They took his flesh, young Elric... stripped the skin clean off of his young body.  Sadly, he bled out before he had even made it completely out of the gateway, and there was nothing we could do for the boy... All because you were too weak to take Envy out when you had the chance... All because of you... Your fault...”_

_My fault._

For the first time in his life, Edward Elric allowed his loneliness to finally consume him.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Major Edward Elric

_May 23, 1941_

 

**“Hating people is like burning down your house to kill a rat.”**

  * **Henry Fosdick**



 

Edward Elric was notorious for his ravenous eating habits and his overwhelming appetite.  He was sure that the entire population of Amestris knew better than to stand between him and a plate of food, and Edward was actually proud of that fact.  Though, now, as he stared down his torso and scowled at the way his stomach appeared to cave in on itself, broken ribs prominent through his stretched skin, he realized how terrible his eating habits had been for his health.

His stomach, small as it was, was accustomed to being stretched to its full capacity three times (or more, if possible) everyday for the entirety of the teenager’s life.  So, for Edward to be denied any form of nutrition for _six_ whole days was the worst kind of torture for him.  His body had begun to use up its stored energy much more quickly than the average person and now he was literally withering away.  Though, Edward supposed, maybe it was for the best.  After all, if he was dead, he wouldn’t be forced to suffer any longer.

And he would be able to see Alphonse again..

Tears pricked at the corners of his eyes.  He knew that Dante and her homunculi wouldn’t allow him to die.  They would push him to his limits, making him pass out from exhaustion or blood loss, before brutally reviving him.  They even went so far as to, one day, give him a blood transfusion, which had apparently been stolen from the Central Hospital, when it seemed his heart wouldn’t be able to recover from the loss.

In the time he had been in this hellish place, the young alchemist had attempted to take his own life a total of four times... each time being thwarted by his captors... and Edward had finally realized that they were constantly watching him through a video camera hung high on the wall, and that nothing he did would escape their notice.  As a result, his attempts had grown more rushed.  From his first time (ripping out the crude stitches on his right leg in hopes of slowly bleeding to death) to his last time (hitting his head repeatedly on a nail jutting out from the wall behind him), Edward had become a master at searching for ways out of his life.  The blonde knew that his mother and Alphonse must be looking down on him with pity and disgust... he knew they wouldn’t approve of his “methods”... but he was so tired, and he was in so much pain.  

All he wanted was to sleep... That wasn’t too much to ask, was it?

Of course, his leg had long ago become infected, and he was in constant pain from the broken ribs scraping against his internal organs (maybe if he arranged his body _just_ right, one of them would be able to pierce his heart)... but the current source of his pain was the result of his hunger.  Edward wasn’t an idiot.  He knew how starvation worked: the body would use up the stored fats inside of him, before beginning to eat away at itself, the muscles being the first to go with the organs following shortly after. Then, of course, there would be nothing left inside of the body but the vital organs: heart, lungs, brain..  Once those began to deteriorate, it was lights out for good.  And with the drastically freezing temperature of the room, so cold that his own blood would freeze to the floor once spilled from his body, the process of Edward’s death was sure to be drawn out, painfully so..

... But, Edward should have known better than to think that his captors would allow that to happen.

A soft humming broke the silence of the dark room, and a dull _thumping_ sound emitted from the very same direction.  From the doorway at the bottom of the staircase leading up to the ground floor, Envy emerged, a playful gleam shining in his violet eyes as he practically skipped across the room to the young alchemist, dropping his cargo carelessly on the floor behind him.  Edward’s nose wrinkled in distaste as he surveyed the grinning homunculus, and flinched in disgust as a cold hand was placed beneath his jaw.

“Dinner time, chibi-san.”  The alchemist’s head jerked up, staring at the green-haired devil with wide eyes, praying that the creature wouldn’t be so cruel as to tease him with the promise of food.  Envy smirked and pat the boy’s right cheek a few times before slapping the surface lightly with his open hand, causing Edward’s head to jerk to the side.

“You’ll behave yourself, won’t you Pipsqueak?  You need to eat, and surely you wouldn’t refuse food...”  Edward shook his head, slightly glaring at the homunculus.  The anger he felt in his body for the creature was suppressed by the urge to control himself.  The hunger was painfully overwhelming, so much so that tears of joy had begun to roll down his cheeks at the very thought of food.

“Good.  Wouldn’t want to have to force you to eat, now would we?”  Envy chuckled as he walked away, and Edward suppressed a shudder of fear at the thought of the creature leaving without feeding him first.  However, true to his promise, Envy stayed, stooping down to toss the package on the floor over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes before returning to Edward and dropping the bag in front of him.

Then, he knelt down and slowly began to peel back the covering, revealing Edward’s meal..

With a start of horror, Edward gagged and began to scream.

The long black hair fanned out around the young girl’s face, appearing as some sort of dark halo.  Her eyes were opened wide in fear, and Edward assumed they must have once been a lovely shade of green, before being obscured and clouded into a milky hazel-grey.  The skin around her face was pale, the blood having been long ago drained from the once rosy cheeks and matching pink lips, now white in death, and Edward released a quiver at the stench which filled the room.

He couldn’t discern how long she had been dead... he wasn’t a pathologist, after all... but from the stench of decay and the discoloration of her skin and grown out fingernails, he estimated that it had at least been a month.  He swallowed back the rising bile in his throat.

Wordlessly, Envy transformed his finger into a sharp blade, before lowering it to the dead girl’s torso and slicing off a large slab of meat.  Old, rusty brown blood languidly seeped from the wound and Edward once again felt tears pricking at the corners his eyes.  Suddenly, the homunculus thrust the removed flesh in front of the alchemist’s face.

“Eat it.”  The golden eyes went wide in horror and he resisted the urge to throw up.  Instead, he chose to launch a wad of saliva in Envy’s eyes.

“Fuck you.”  He had momentarily forgotten the ever-present ‘no talking’ rule, and unconsciously braced himself for any sort of impact.

“Hmm.. maybe later, chibi,” the smiling creature replied with a wink, causing Edward to shudder.  “For now, though, you need to keep up your strength.”  He once again shoved the slab of human flesh under the blonde’s nose, overloading Edward’s brain with the smell of decay.

“Come on, Edo... It’s not nearly as bad as it seems, I promise...”  The boy twisted his head far away from the scene before him and shut his eyes, refusing to look at the homunculus or his so-called ‘meal’.  “Either you eat it by choice, or I make it into your punishment for talking...”

His eyes shot open.  Either way he knew he would be forced to eat the disgusting, rotten meat of his own kind... but if Envy were to make eating it a punishment...  Edward could only imagine what the homunculus would force him to do, and his body trembled involuntarily at the thought of being put through something similar to yesterday’s ‘game’ (as Envy so often referred to them as).  It was simple, or so Dante had explained to him.  She would ask him a question, and he would answer them to the best of his ability.  Each time he answered incorrectly, one of his fingers would be broken..

Naturally, he had gotten every single question wrong, and the crazy bitch had gone so far as to actually _rip off_ his ring finger and stick it in his mouth until he mustered up enough strength to spit it back out.

He had been forced to lay there for an hour afterwards, with his back scraping up harshly against the wall, and listen to the steady _drip_ -ing of the blood from his missing phalange as it fell onto the crown of his head.  The blood had begun to mat the alchemist’s blonde hair, and Envy had actually complimented Edward’s new look before bandaging up his hand and knocking him unconscious.

Envy’s “punishment” could only be worse than yesterday’s, Edward mused.  His wound still throbbed from the pain, and subconsciously, the alchemist knew his body couldn’t handle another of his captors ‘games’ at the current time... 

... So he gave in.

Reluctantly, Edward’s jaw dropped down an inch, and Envy smirked maliciously before shoving the meat inside of the alchemist’s mouth.  The slimy coating on the skin mixed with the old blood and layered Edward’s mouth in the substance, trails of the liquid seeping down his esophagus and into his stomach which then retched in order to rid his body of the material.  

“Chew.”  Edward wordlessly followed the homunculus’s instructions, trying desperately to ignore the repulsive _squelch-_ ing sounds the rotten meat made as his incisors made contact with it.  The tears began to flow freely down his face, bits of the liquid freezing to his jawline as it solidified in the icy air.

“Swallow it, chibi-san.”  His jaw paused in it’s labor and the golden eyes widened substantially at the demand.  Slowly, almost escaping Envy’s notice, the blonde alchemist shook his head from side to side, sniffling and hiccuping every so often.  Growling, the shape-shifter grabbed the boy’s jaw tightly in his hand and drew Edward’s face up close to his own.  Edward’s eyes widened in a mixture of fear and surprise, his leaking tears quickly drying up and stopping altogether.  

“Swallow.  It.”  Envy seethed through clenched teeth.  “ _Now_.”  After a moments hesitation, Edward screwed his eyes tightly together and choked down the provision, immediately trying to throw it back up once he felt the meat land heavily in his stomach.  He knew that he couldn’t though...  No matter how badly he wanted to vomit, that stupid green pill had done permanent damage to his stomach, effectively keeping everything- _everything-_ within the organ once it entered.

Suddenly, Edward was administered a fist into the right side of his ribcage, causing him to gasp and cry out in pain.  In reward, a new slab of the corpse’s flesh was shoved in his mouth.

“ _That_ , chibi-san, was for your defiance.  Now eat it.”  Envy wiped off the blood, which had spilled from the alchemist’s torso from the punch, on his skirt.  Unsurprisingly, the homunculus had aimed to hit the area on Edward’s chest from which he had earlier ripped the auto mail port from the skin.

Slumping with his back against the wall, the young alchemist slowly chewed and swallowed the offending product, which was immediately replaced with a third strip and then a forth.  Edward continued to do as he was told, feeling the fire inside of him slowly beginning to flicker and die out.

He just wanted to die...

 


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

General Roy Mustang

_June 6, 1941_

**"No my friend, darkness is not everywhere, for here and there I find faces illuminated from within; paper lanterns among the dark trees."**

**-Carole Borges**

The General knew it was far too early for any sane mortal to even consider being awake... let alone, making breakfast... but, for the moment, it helped to take his mind off of things. Beneath his prodding spatula, the bacon gave a tantalizing hiss and the smell of the meat cooking wafted up to his nostrils. Oddly enough, Mustang wasn't hungry in the least bit... and the aroma of the food actually made his stomach churn and lurch painfully. How could he even  _think_  of food at a time like this?

Nearly an entire month had passed since the Elrics' disappearance and the General's mood had gone from slightly put-off to utterly hopeless. What in the world had happened to them? Where could they be? As the warmer weather had rolled across Amestris with the arrival of summer, life had continued to move on. Recently, Mustang had received a call from the northern front with the worst kind of news: he had been discovered. Some brilliant soldier on the front lines had finally put two-and-two together and realized that the "General" in charge was really Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc. When questioned, Havoc replied that he had realized Mustang had disappeared and effectively panicked- dressing to look like him to keep the order in the military camp.

In other news, an investigation had begun on the murder of Fuhrer King Bradley, and the entire military appeared to be swarming the city in search of the killer. Roy jumped and swore under his breath as the frying meat spat hot grease at him from the bubbling pan.

Wanted for murder and desertion... At least he would go out with a bang, he thought bitterly.

A soft knock at his front door broke the man out of his thoughts, and he startled at the notion that another person was insane enough to be awake at this early hour. Sighing lazily at the browning strips of bacon, he yelled to his visitor that the door was unlocked and was immediately rewarded by the sound of the front door opening and slamming, accompanied by a soft pair of footfalls on the hardwood floors.

"Ah, just in time! Do you like your eggs runny or hard?" The blonde Lieutenant standing in the doorway jerked at the question. There was a long breath of silence, broken occasionally by the popping and sizzling of bacon.

"Sir... what on earth are you doing?" He glanced over at her briefly before plucking the meat from the frying pan and cracking an egg on the counter.

"Cooking. What did you think I was doing?" Hawkeye chuckled softly as one of the eggs burst open in his hand and splattered across the counter and floor. Since his Lieutenant hadn't given him her response on the preference of breakfast, he decided:  _fuck it; scrambled it is..._ and began to dump several eggs into a mixing bowl.

"That's exactly what I thought..." Riza supplied, resting her hands on the kitchen table. "I never imagined you as the cooking type.." Roy smirked slightly at that. Just what 'type'  _was_ he, if not the cooking type?

"Don't get me wrong. I'm no chef," he replied, pouring the soupy concoction into a frying pan whilst attempting to save his burning bacon strips. "It just sometimes helps me to get my mind off of things.." The silence stretched between the two comrades.

"You're still mad at yourself, aren't you?" He shrugged minutely, as though he couldn't be bothered with the question, and focused on taking his anger out on the solidifying eggs.

"There's no point in dwelling on sure things, Hawkeye. I just want to find the boys as quickly as possible and get back to my life."

"There's no reason to hide the fact that you're upset, Sir. It'll only open new wounds." Roy only shook his head in response, before spooning the eggs onto the two plates he had laid out for them. Turning, he silently walked over to the dining table and set the plates down in front of two adjacent chairs, also taking the time to lay out the silverware and orange juice.

"Come. Sit." He announced, motioning to the chair nearest to his Lieutenant and pouring himself a glass of the fruit juice. He smiled to himself as he regarded the beverage. Edward would have been proud.

It seemed like an eternity ago that General Mustang had visited Edward in the hospital while he was nursing a stab wound, only to enter the room and find the brothers in the midst of an all-out war over drinking milk.

Or, as Edward had so tastefully described, "curdled cow secretions".

Since then, Roy had subconsciously distanced himself from the substance, refusing to even keep it in his refrigerator at home... let alone add it to his coffee. Thanks to that blonde fireball, General Mustang now took his coffee black.

"Those brothers are strong, General. I'm sure they're fine... wherever they are." He jolted from his musings at the Lieutenant's break in silence. His shoulders suddenly felt too heavy and he allowed them to slump as he placed his fork and knife down on his plate in sadness.

"And what if they aren't?" Riza glanced up at him, eyebrows knit together in question. "They may be strong, Lieutenant... But that doesn't change the fact that they're still children. They can't be expected to face everything that comes there way. That's what we adults are here for. To protect them when they get caught in a situation that they can't handle by themselves." Roy could distantly hear Edward giving him an earful for calling him a child, and glanced up to watch the woman across from him give a resigned sigh.

"I understand."

Once again, they were returned to their silent breakfast.

The next time the Lieutenant spoke up, all of the eggs had disappeared and only a few strips of bacon remained. Her words were guarded, as though she was dealing with a ticking bomb instead of the man she would gladly lay down her life for.

"This isn't about Alphonse so much as it is about Edward, is it?" General Mustang looked up in confusion and attempted to decipher the meaning behind his companion's statement. When he realized that her stoic expression refused to change or give away any details, he decidedly changed his tactic.

"I'm not sure I know what you mean." He supplied, placing his silverware carefully onto the folded napkin beside his plate. Hawkeye sighed and mirrored his actions, placing her utensils down before bothering to speak another word.

"It's undeniable that you feel very protective over the older Elric brother, Sir. Even though you constantly bicker at one another, he's always been someone that you've cared deeply for." Roy reached for his glass of juice, downing the inch-or-so of liquid before clearing his throat in discomfort and setting the Lieutenant with a hard stare.

"Edward is my  _subordinate,_ Hawkeye. You know I give equal care for each of my men.. I don't give anyone any special privileges or show favoritis-"

"Yes, yes. We're like family to you..." She waved her hand in the air, stopping his protests short. "But maybe you've been denying the fact that Edward is more than that. That you may have unrealized feeli-" Mustang abruptly slapped his palms against the table and stood, glaring at the woman across from him.

"No! No, no, NO!" The skin around his eyepatch furrowed into an ugly scowl, and his remaining eye flashed dangerously. "You have this completely wrong! Where did you even come up with something like that?!" Hawkeye folded her hands neatly in her lap and kept her stoic mask in place.

"It was just an observation, Sir." Breathing heavily, the General regarded her with a look of utter bewilderment. Raising one hand to smooth the bangs away from his face, he sighed and focused his gaze on anything but the woman seated before him.

"Well, it was a pretty shitty one, if you ask me."

"My apologies, General." Wordlessly, the man gathered the two sets of dinnerware in his arms, stacking the cups together and placing the utensils inside, and walked over to the sink. As Hawkeye sat silently at the table, alternating between looking at her hands or out the window, Roy began to scrape the uneaten food into the garbage and pile the dishes into the sink. When no more sounds from the glass plates met her ears, the Lieutenant turned to regard her superior officer only to find him staring out the kitchen window, shoulders haunched and hands resting wide on the counter top.

"Hawkeye?" He nearly whispered, at long last breaking the silence. Keeping her cool composure, as was customary of the woman, Riza didn't spare a breath in her response.

"Yes, Sir?" There was an immediate tension in his shoulders at the sound of his Lieutenant's reply, almost as though Mustang had not expected an answer or hadn't wanted to be heard. The blonde woman watched slowly as the tension began to melt away from his back, quietly counting the minutes of silence which passed. When it was apparent that the raven-haired man no longer had any desire to voice his straggled thoughts, Hawkeye cleared her throat.

"Something on your mind, General?" Slowly, Mustang walked over to the calendar hanging on a nearby cabinet. The First Lieutenant blinked in confusion, wondering what specifically could have caught the General's attention on the object. The man's eyes suddenly turned somber and he ripped his gaze to, once more, look out the window.

"It's been an entire month... They've been gone for so long, I hadn't even realized." He whispered brokenly to the dawning sun. His eyes closed in exasperation, honestly feeling as though the weight of the entire world was on his shoulders. The wooden chair legs protested loudly as they scraped against the tile, signaling the movement of his subordinate. She walked over, and rested an arm on the countertop.

"... We'll find them, Sir. And they'll be perfectly fine when we see them." Mustang hung his head low and felt doubt begin to cloud his mind.

"He's never been gone this long before... Not ever. Even when he ran all the way from Liore to Resembool, he was only out of my sight for a week at the most." He didn't miss the look of sympathy which flashed across his Lieutenant's features. She was too damn observant for her own good. How the hell had she known of his feelings before even he himself?

"He can take care of himself, General. I'm sure he's on a train to Resembool now and just didn't bother to inform us of his return." Roy could have smacked himself in the forehead for being such an airhead! Resembool! Had he honestly scoured every inch of the city, but not even bothered with checking the kids' hometown first?!

"Shit! Why the hell didn't I think of that?!" He instantly made a beeline for the phone hanging on the wall, eyes alight with a new sense of hope and purpose, when the ground was ripped out from beneath him.

"You never called the Rockbells?" The memories hit him unexpectedly and General Mustang nearly fell to the floor with the sheer force of the Ishbal horror. Bright blue eyes stared back at him with fear and betrayal laced in their orbs as he raised the gun and willed himself to pull the trigger.  _This is only following orders. They're helping the enemy which, in turn, is killing the people I love. I have to kill them, or they'll never stop. I'm following orders... Following orders... following... orders.._

... He could still hear their screams and the gunshots which followed.

His hand had been raised, poised over the receiver, when he had frozen in his tracks. Swallowing what remained of his pride, he sent his subordinate a pleading look. "Could... Could you do it, Hawkeye?" The Lieutenant gave him a reproachful look before softening into one of understanding. Wordlessly, she took his place in front of the phone and called the operator, instructing them to patch her through to Sarah and Urey Rockbell. Hearing the first names of the doctors sent a stab of guilt coursing through him and he swallowed hard. It took all of Roy's self control not to flinch as he heard a young girl answer on the other end.

"Hello, terribly sorry for calling you so late..." Soft assurances passed through the line and Hawkeye smiled warmly into the mouthpiece. "Winry, how are you? It's Riza." Roy silently thanked whoever was listening that he had asked her to answer the phone instead of him. He wasn't entirely sure he could expect himself to handle speaking with the girl he had orphaned.

"That's great. Listen, is Edward there, by any chance?" He watched silently as the Lieutenant's brow furrowed.

"Winr-?" Suddenly, a deeper voice came over the phone and Roy felt his heart leap into his throat. Riza's eyes grew wide as she heard the newcomer answer the phone. "Alphonse? Is that you? You sound different..." Her hand suddenly flew to her mouth, eyes wide with excitement. Now the General was feeling rather peeved that he wasn't on the line with the youngest Elric. But at least now they knew that the boys were, in fact, in Resembool.

"You-! That's incredible! How did yo-?" Without warning, Riza's demeanor completely changed. Where her face had displayed excitement moments ago... It now spoke unimaginable horror. The receiver fell from her hand, clattering to the floor and skidding a few feet away, as she slumped against the wall and slid to the ground. Mustang quickly grappled for the phone, feeling a sense of cold dread sweep over him.

As he brought the phone to his ear he could distinctly hear the sound of strangled sobs ripping themselves from the boy on the phone. But... Alphonse couldn't cry..

"Hello, Alphonse? It's General Mustang." In response, he heard a noise similar to someone's breath catching in their throat, before the sobbing continued- much louder and more distressed.

_"I... I'm s-s-o... so... sor-sorry... I-I'm so.. so sorry.."_ The line went dead and the dial tone was almost deafening. Frantically, Mustang grabbed at the receiver and shouted into it, desperate for an answer.

"Alphonse? Alphonse, hello?" No answer. He was gone. He threw the phone away from him in frustration, ignoring the way the cord caused it to simply slide back across the floor.

"Damn it! What the hell happened, Hawkeye?" He grabbed at the Lieutenant's shoulders, searching her eyes for an answer. Of course, they betrayed nothing, but there was a sadness lingering there... A sadness he had not seen in her eyes for many years. She quietly raised her hands and placed them over his own, raising them from her shoulders and away from her as she studied the tile flooring.

"Alphonse is in Resembool, Sir. His body has been restored." The General blinked, as if not entirely comprehending what he had been told. After all this time... could Al really be back to normal? Though his heart wanted to smile and leap for joy, his mind told him that there were still too many pieces missing from the puzzle.

"I- I can't believe it... That's amazing!" The questions fell from his lips like rain. "But... why was Al so upset? And why the hell didn't they call to let us know that they're okay? They could at lea-"

"Edward isn't with him, Sir." He fell silent and stared at his subordinate, who looked just about ready to cry. The sun betrayed her as it continued to rise in the sky, washing over her with its rays and causing the watering of her eyes to become more apparent. Mustang was shell-shocked and felt as though a vice had gripped his heart. Hawkeye only cried on extreme occasions... the last time he remembered was when she had believed him to be dead on the front porch of the Fuhrer's mansion.

"What do you mean? Where is he?" He spoke the words on instinct. It was as though he was a marionette; a puppet on strings: aware of his every movement, but too numb to control them himself. At her silence, he felt himself burrow more deeply into the safety of his mind, trying desperately to hide himself from the answer which he knew he would soon need to face.

But, he was afraid. He wasn't as strong as his loyal Lieutenant. He had almost killed himself after the war, where she had stood strong. And now...

Now he didn't have Hughes to pull him through the darkness.

Again, his lips moved of their own accord, trembling violently as if from cold, and repeated his earlier question.

If there was any warmth to the sunlight on his back, he couldn't feel it. He was numb to the world. Hollow. Cold with fear at the realization that, once again, his friend had blatantly ignored his question.

Dismally, he reached out and placed his right hand on her shoulder, bowing his head in silent prayer and tried to ignore the shaking of his form.

"Hawkeye... please.. Where's Fullmetal?" He thought he could handle it. He thought that, perhaps, he had only imagined the tears in her eyes. His subordinates were strong. Hawkeye didn't cry, and Edward could never be deterred. Whatever obstacle the alchemist faced, he always overcame it with that beautiful fire in his eyes. And that fire would never go out so long as Roy was breathing.

That's right... Whatever had been said over the phone... He could take it.

"Dead."

He was wrong.

 


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

Major Edward Elric

_June 10, 1941_

 

**“I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad.**

**Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times; but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers.”**

**-Helen Keller**

 

It was a struggle to keep his eyes focused.  Hell, it was a struggle enough to simply keep them open..

His entire frame shook relentlessly against the chill of the room, gooseflesh prickling his skin in his body’s last desperate attempt to warm itself.  Only a month ago, when the blonde had awoken in the icy basement, he had confidently told himself that he could handle so much worse than a few degrees below freezing.  It hadn’t been a concern of his at the time.  He believed, well in his heart, that there would be far more difficult obstacles to overcome.

He had been wrong.

His only hand was tied securely above his head, wrist blistering under the harsh grind of the rope on his skin.  He was suffering from numerous life-threatening infections, including those on his right leg and the area from which his arm port had been practically ripped away.  He was starving (his stomach chose right then to give him a _very_ friendly reminder of just how true that fact was) and his only source of nutrition was whatever half-decayed human corpse his homunculus captor managed to scrounge up each day.

On top of all of that, there were the beatings.. 

As it turned out, Dante hadn’t survived for much longer after her rendezvous with the state alchemist... eventually, her decaying body turned on her and she wasted away.  Envy was apparently none-to-happy about being orphaned, and took out his misery on his half-brother.  Edward endured the blows as they rained down on him; he even dealt with the rape, to some extent...  He could breathe easy again now, knowing that Mustang was most likely alive.

During a particular temper tantrum one day, Envy had allowed it to slip that he and Wrath were now the only two homunculi left.  When Edward had been detained, Pride and Gluttony had still been in the picture.  He wasn’t sure how the fat one had actually met his end... he supposed it must have had something to do with the fact that he had attempted to eat his creator after they had made their hasty retreat.  The fact that Envy had neglected to mention the sudo-Fuhrer meant that Mustang had claimed victory in their final duel.

That didn’t necessarily mean that he was alive though... or _not_ in jail.

It sure as hell gave the Fullmetal Alchemist a lot to think about, though, and he was grateful for that fact.  For just a few moments a day, he could escape from the ever-present guilt looming over him from his brother’s death.  It was still hard for him to hold his tongue as Envy mercilessly beat him, daily... He so badly wanted to cry out; to just give in..

But, no matter what Envy tried... no matter if he burned out his eyes and fed him hot lava... no matter if the monster forced him to kill the human being who would later suffice as his meal... Edward Elric refused to break.  He had told himself that it couldn’t be done.  Nothing, big or small, would ever break his resolve, or make him lose sight of what was truly important.

But this damned cold was _really_ beginning to test his patience.

It seemed, to the young alchemist, that his mind thoroughly enjoyed twirling itself around the fantasy that he would someday be saved from this dark room.  His mind loved to think of every _single_ scenario that could (and _would_ )happen to him, once removed from the underground city.

And, of course, once he got on this track, there was little he could do to stop himself from dwelling on the hopelessness of his situation. 

He was positive that his entire shoulder would need to be amputated, should he ever be rescued from this Hell he had been allotted, as the remains of his steel port had long ago begun to freeze to the skin around it.  Since the metal cooled off much more quickly than his flesh, with the warm pulse of blood beneath it, his automail had drastically quickened the rate at which his right shoulder had fallen prey to frostbite.  And even if he was told that the surgeons would be able to save his shoulder, Edward knew, without any doubt in his mind, that there was little to no hope for his wounded leg.

Every move he made was in agony.  

The situation was foreign to him... He had never once been in a position where someone else had total control over him and he knew, right away, that he did not enjoy being controlled one bit.  For a large part of his consciousness, the young alchemist was forced to keep his eyes shut, lest he succumb to the spinning of his mind.  The large, empty basement reeked- somewhat of decay, but mostly consisting of the putrid stench of dehydrated urine, since he was now forced to consider the entire floor as his bathroom.

 _Like the filthy mutt that you are...  I think it suits you well._ Envy’s voice rang through his mindand he desperately tried to shake the words from his head.  It had been his own fault, after all.  Since he had been too stubborn to listen to Envy (choosing, instead, to issue him the silent treatment) when he had instructed Edward to go to the bathroom.

Now, he couldn’t even ask to use the toilet without being punished.  He would always need the homunculus’s permission to relieve himself and then, of course, came the truly shameful act of proceeding under the demon’s watchful eye.  Envy loved to make him miserable, as he himself was miserable...

The young alchemist learned very quickly that it had not been a smart idea to shake his head so vigorously, given his current state. The blood loss had made him weak, and had substantially lessened the flow of oxygen to his brain, making his every movement that much more difficult and exhausting to make.  Every breath was a struggle; every blink of his eye caused him to sigh with fatigue; and every hungry lurch his stomach gave made him want to scream.

_No more..  Please, God, no more..._

He was slowly falling apart..

_Let me die.  Please..  Just, please, no more.._

_.._ Edward Elric was falling apart.

A lone tear ran down the length of his cheek, its trail forming tiny ice crystals almost immediately against his skin.  The droplet fell to his torso and came to rest in the now hollow pit that was his stomach.  

As he stared down at his own tear, slowly beginning to freeze to his abdomen in the frigid cold, he saw his own eyes reflected back at him.  All the horrors... all of the pain and suffering he had been forced to endure throughout his miserable excuse for a life, was now being echoed back at him in the tiniest of teardrops.  He saw his father, creator of the homunculi, leaving through the front door of his childhood home and never looking back.  He watched as his mother took her last breath of life, before being laid in her casket.  He watched as Al’s soul was ripped from his body, and saw himself desperately offer up anything he could for his brother’s return.  He saw Shou Tucker.. And Nina..

Once the droplet began to reflect back the memory of the Lieutenant Colonel’s death ( _all my fault.. I did this... It’s my fault he’s gone_ ), Edward snapped.

He began to frantically tear at the rope around his bruised and broken wrist, ignoring the splotches of his blood which fell to his face as the bindings tore at his barely-healed flesh.  He longer cared, no longer had anything left to live for in this god-forsaken world.  Why the hell couldn’t that bastard Homunculus just kill him already?  

He screamed and cried into the darkness, wordlessly calling upon God to strike him down  where he was chained.  To grant him some form of peace in this hell he had been allotted.

_Why would anyone give me any form of solace?  What good have I done in this world?  Everything I touch turns to ash and lives crumble and burn around me._

His anger- anger at himself; anger at God for giving him life; anger at the truth of it all that this was all his fault- steadily turned into immeasurable sadness.  Why had he been given life, when the only thing he succeeded in causing was pain and destruction?

He had told himself that it couldn’t be done... That he would never break...But, here he was, sobbing uncontrollably in the isolated basement, still wishing (futilely) for someone in the above world to save him.  

 _I’m going to die here_ , he thought miserably.  Though, he supposed, it was probably for the best. 

It wasn’t as though anyone in their right mind could ever care for the selfish, low-life kid who had just sat by and allowed his brother to die for his sake.  The scars he had received here would forever be with him, as a testament of his weakness.  He would never be able to forget..  He would never be able to return to normal ever again.  The alchemist allowed his head to fall to his chest and tried to suppress the welling tears in his eyes.  

_A broken, useless, shell of a man._

What was there to live for?  What did he have left?  His entire life-purpose died along with his brother and now he found that he was lost.  He was searching, desperately for a new light at the end of his tunnel- trying to find something... _anything..._ to give his life meaning.  But, his world had and will always revolve around Alphonse. 

Without Alphonse, he had no purpose.

A small amount of light suddenly traipsed down the stairwell and dusted the basement in a soft gold.  Now that Edward could see himself, he visibly flinched at the ugliness of it all.  His skin had begun yellowing in its emaciated state, casting blue and purple shadows around his ribs and toes.  At the very peak of his left hipbone, the paper-thin layer of flesh covering his pelvis had actually begun to peel away from the bone beneath.

As the blonde stared, unbelieving, at the sight of his exposed bone, he distantly heard the soft footsteps drawing ever-closer to him and he shivered in apprehension.  Envy finally conquered the final step and stepped out onto the landing of the dark room, sniffing in disgust at the odor which hit him in waves.

Edward refused to lift up his head to look at his captor.  No, he refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing the hopelessness in Edward’s eyes.  He would remain strong- if only to just pretend.  Though, as he waited, he didn’t hear any sign that Envy was moving around the room at all.  As the homunculus normally strode into the room, confidently- sometimes even whistling- Edward’s hairs began to stand on the nape of his neck at his silence, wondering what the demon must be planning.

When, after another few minutes of quiet stillness had passed by, Edward slowly raised his head to greet his captor, instantly putting his mask in place so that the homunculus wouldn’t see his pain, but inhaled sharply when he saw what was waiting for him.

_No..._

_No... I- It can’t be.._

_.. Alphonse..._


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

Major Edward Elric

_July 10, 1941_

 

**“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”**

**― Edna St. Vincent Millay**

 

Golden irises steadily opened to meet a set of large hazel orbs.    


_Alphonse?_ His vision finally sharpened and cleared and Edward was able to take in the figure in front of him, gasping in utter shock when his brain finally processed the familiar form.  Soft brunette locks framed his tanned face evenly and a small smile tugged gently on his lips as Alphonse Elric stared back at his older brother.  The blonde’s eyes began to water as his emotion steadily overcame him, choking him with happiness.  


“Alphonse!”  


“You wish, chibi-san!”  With a blinding white light, the form of Edward’s brother was instantly replaced by that of Envy.  His stunned shock lasted only a moment before quickly being replaced by white-hot rage.  


“Envy, you son of a bitch!”  His voice was hoarse from disuse and speaking caused his eyes to tear in pain from the callousness of the air on his throat, but he paid it no mind.  He didn’t care that he wasn’t allowed to speak... that he would most likely be punished for his outbursts later on... He continued to scream curses at the homunculus and thrashed around wildly, kicking against his restraints at the open air in anger at himself for falling for such a cheap trick.  Before long, exhaustion settled over him and his jerking movements abruptly stopped, head falling back against his chest.  Suppressing a shudder, he felt the homunculus place a strong hand beneath his chin and lift it to face him.  


“I wonder what would happen if I should decide to keep this appearance... How would you like to see Al again, hmm?”  Envy smiled at him, satisfied at the brief flash of horror on the boy’s features.  He knew he would enjoy this method of torture most of all.  


“Don’t you dare, you jackass!  You have no right-”  The protest died in his throat as another flash of light signaled yet another of Envy’s transformations.  Caring bronze met startled gold and Edward could practically taste his brother’s natural scent.  


“Brother...”  The pink lips parted gently with the tender utterance of that one word... And it was almost enough to push Edward over the edge of his distress.  A few stray tears left his eyes, unheeded by him as he tried desperately to turn away from the sight before him.  


“Don’t!  Don’t you dare use Alphonse against me!”  He sobbed angrily into his shoulder, twisting his head as far away from his brother as possible.  


“Brother, please...”  The voice grew steadily closer to Edward’s ear, and he felt Al’s hot breath tease the hairs at the base of his neck.  “I’m here.  It’s really me... Don’t you love me?”  The question caused the blonde to jerk violently in shock and return to the face of the younger boy.  


“Of course I love you!  Dammit, Envy!  Knock it off!  Al knows I love him!”  


“Then why did you let me die, Brother?”  Everything stopped.  Edward stared his sibling in the eyes and searched for an explanation.  


“No... Al, I- I didn’t know!  I’m sorry... I didn’t know...”  Lies.  All lies.  His fault.  It was all his fault and everyone knew it.  Alphonse/Envy leaned in closer to the distraught teen and elicited a few tears to cascade down the cheeks of his borrowed face.  


“You killed me, Edward...”  


“No!  Stop saying that!  You’re lying... It wasn’t my fault!  Al... I’m sorry... I’m sorry... I didn’t-”  Who was he talking to?  He couldn’t find the strength to tell himself that he wasn’t actually carrying a conversation with Al...  He couldn’t find the strength to deny himself that which was right in front of him.  So what if it was Envy?  He could pretend, right?  Just for a little while at least... He could pretend he still had his brother... That he wasn’t truly alone.  “... I- I’m so sorry, Al...  I’m sorry...”  


“You can make it right, Edward... show me you never meant to hurt me.  Keep me alive through you.”  


“How?”  A firm yet gentle hand pressed against the base of his jaw as Alphonse slowly beckoned his brother’s eyes to meet his.  Edward was greeted with a warm smile, a smile that was so unbelievably Alphonse that it made the blonde want to cry.  


“Kiss me.”  Ed started at the demand, chain rattling around his wrist as his arm jerked in surprise.  


“.... Wh... What?”  The brunette bent low to his ear, hot breath fanning across his brother’s face.  He smelled of peppermint... and the aroma of Alphonse filled every aspect of his existence, making it hard to breathe and even harder to think straight.  


“Kiss me, Brother... before you lose me again...”  


“.... Al...”  He couldn’t comprehend what his brother’s voice was asking, couldn’t see the determined look in the Homunculus’s eyes.. He was too far gone, reveling in the sweetness of his brother’s incense, the tenderness of each fingertip upon his skin... Al was alive.  He was here... And that was all that mattered to him.  


“Kiss me...”  The lulling voice repeated, and Edward was briefly snapped from his stupor as his mind finally caught up with the spoken words.    


“I... no, I can’t!  You’re my brother!”  He turned his face away, shoving his auto mail knee between them to prevent the homunculus from closing the space separating the two of them.  It was in vain, however, as the younger boy calmly pushed it aside, fitting himself neatly between Edward’s thighs.  Simultaneously, Alphonse drew his face in towards the blonde and reached up a hand to grip the hair at the base of his neck.  


“Then just relax...”  Pink, velvety lips crashed onto his and the state alchemist struggled in the tight grip of the brunette.  Though Edward tried to tell himself that he didn’t want it, that he _shouldn’t_ want it, a large part of him knew that he did... and it was for that reason that the struggles ceased almost immediately as they had begun.  Edward went limp in his brother’s arms, eyes screwing together tightly, neck muscles straining to push their lips closer together as Alphonse enveloped him completely.    


He couldn’t stop, and he knew it was wrong to want something so badly.  Edward had the faint realization that, while he certainly loved his brother much more than in the conventional way, he would never in a thousand years be so incestuous with him...  He felt disgusting, vile, monstrous... and yet...  


Edward choked back a sob as his “brother” slid his tongue between his cracked, dehydrated lips, silently begging for entrance, and bit back a groan as the muscle traced over his molars.  If nothing else, Ed’s compliance came solely from the fact that he believed his only brother to be dead, at his fault, and missed him dearly.  Most days, the guilt was far too immense for the boy to handle and he would call out Alphonse’s name in the dark room, desperately hoping to see him just one last time.    


And now here he was... His prayers answered, and his brother delivered... And he could not find the strength to do anything besides succumbing to the other male and allowing him to encompass him completely.  He could touch him, taste him, smell him... and all these things eased the aching sorrow plaguing his heart in just the slightest amounts to make living more bearable... at least for a little while.  He gave in to his desires, arching his back to press their bodies closer together, needing to feel the proof that Alphonse was truly there.   


He wanted this.  He needed this.  Just once...   


“Al!...”  His mouth opened wide in a silent gasp, cheeks tinging a deep shade of red as his brother’s hand brushed across his most sensitive part.  Accepting the darkening blush staining Edward’s face as permission to continue, Alphonse allowed his fingers to mindlessly caress the hardening member, twisting his fingers through the soft blonde curls which surrounded it.  


“I never understood why brothers are forbidden to love each other like this; like I love you... Do you love me too, Brother?”  The adoring brown eyes gazed down upon him, a small smile tugging at the corner of his rosy lips which he so desperately wanted to feel on his again.  A small squeak escaped the blonde as the digits teased the slit, dragging the pre cum down onto the remainder of his twitching organ.  


“Al... hnn.”  His thoughts were abruptly interrupted as the small fingers steadily wrapped around the head, encircling him in their warmth.  Edward’s interest in the outside world effectively halted and he reveled in the sweet pleasure overtaking him as Al’s breath fanned across his ear once more, repeating his earlier question:  


“Do you love me, Edward?”  


“I... I do.... I love you, Al... More than anything in the world.”  The noises slipping from his throat sounded absolutely pitiful, like an injured animal of some breed, as Alphonse continued to stroke him lovingly.  


“Then, please, Brother... I just want to taste you, to feel you...”  He gave in.  Whatever weak and piteous struggles he had continued to perform now left him completely as he submitted to the younger boy altogether, giving all of himself to him.  The brunette once more pressed their mouths together in a heated passion before trailing his lips down Ed’s smooth tanned skin, nipping and suckling on the softness until he reached his destination.  


The chain rattled loudly behind him as Edward’s back arched far off of the stone wall, wanting nothing more than to fist his fingers into Alphonse’s delicate brown strands as the small mouth bobbed around his sex, taking him further and further into it’s delicious warmth.    


“You taste so good, Ed.  Like the summer rain..”  Alphonse loved the rain.  The older brother threw his head back with a groan as the brunette hummed in satisfaction, already tight walls now vibrating around him.  


“Al... please...”  Edward whimpered pathetically as he bucked into his brother’s hot mouth, head spinning in absolute bliss.  Alphonse reached up a tentative hand, dragging the nails over Edward’s shrunken abdominal muscles and chest before sharply tugging on the taut nipple there.  The reaction was instantaneous: Edward mewled loudly, hips jerking up wildly into the heat, as his seed spilled from him and into his brother’s mouth.  


The alchemist panted loudly, gasping for air as his body recovered from his very first orgasm, limbs shaking slightly in the aftermath.  The golden irises refused to focus on his surroundings and the lids threatened to droop closed.  Never in his life had he expected to feel as amazing as he had in that shred of a moment... perhaps it had only lasted a few seconds, or maybe ten years...  He didn’t know, nor did he truly care.  


He had felt... whole.  Completed in a way only his brother could make him feel.  


Alphonse sat up, smirking, as he lapped at the corner of his mouth with that devilish pink tongue.  


“You’re messy, Brother...”  A soft crimson colored Edward’s cheeks as he sheepishly glanced down at the mess he had made.  


“Sorry... I couldn’t... It just felt-”  His gasping words were sharply cut off by a searing kiss, causing his heart to flutter violently in his ribcage as the oxygen temporarily left his lungs.  Al nibbled tenderly on his lower lip before attacking his neck instead, earning a low groan from his still-recovering brother.  Through the lusty haze, Edward could distinctly feel his brother’s arousal pressed up tight against his stomach and it only served to reawaken his own desire.    


“My turn..”  A velvety voice whispered in his ear, causing him to shiver in anticipation.  


Slowly, ever so slowly, Alphonse kissed and suckled his way down the tanned skin of his brother’s abdomen, only pausing to dip his tongue into his naval before continuing lower still.  Before coming close to the desired location, the brunette suddenly lunged forward and captured Edward’s lips with his own, momentarily using this passion as a distraction from his probing fingers.    


Edward’s eyes slammed shut on their own accord, scrunching up against the unwanted intrusion, but his brother’s hot mouth working over his seemed to lessen the pain some, and before long the discomfort faded completely.  Alphonse added a second digit to the warmth, humming in satisfaction as the boy beneath him gave a pleasant shudder when he crooked his fingers in _just_ the right way.  


The younger Elric moved his mouth down to the hollow of Edward’s throat, desperately wanting to hear the sounds the boy made as he grazed his fingers against that sweet spot deep within him again and again.  Edward began to pant and mewl beneath the brunette, completely lost in the sensations triggered by that wonderful ball of nerves inside of him and groaned dejectedly when his brother slowly removed his hand, using it instead to give the blonde’s neglected arousal a few quick strokes.  As he lined himself up, Alphonse shifted his loving hazel eyes to glance at the trembling form beneath him, silently asking for the alchemist’s permission to press forward.  


With a nod, Edward accepted a chaste kiss from the younger boy before gritting his teeth tightly together in the anticipation of what was to follow.  Slowly, allowing plenty of time for his brother to adjust, Alphonse eased his cock into the awaiting warmth, biting down harshly onto his lower lip at the immense pleasure which surged through him.  But he couldn’t thrust yet.  He had to play the part... he had to _be_ Alphonse Elric: unselfish and caring... if he ever wanted this plan to work.  


Envy waited, the patience nearly killing him as the muscles clenched and unclenched around him, for Edward to adjust to the penetration.  After what began to seem like eons, the blonde finally nodded his head, a tear leaking from the corner of one eye, and the homunculus had to remind himself to take it slow.  


Leaning down to kiss the tear from Edward’s cheek, he tenderly drew out from within his brother before thrusting quickly back inside, making a direct hit on the blonde’s prostate and causing him to cry out in ecstasy.  Alphonse took a mouthful of flesh along Edward’s collarbone and suckled the skin there, biting down gently so as not to hurt him too much when it left its mark as he quickly set a pace for them: slow and deliberate.  Edward cried out again and again as his prostate was directly hit with each forward thrust, moaning loudly and arching his back off of the wall, wanting nothing more than to wrap his legs tightly around his brother’s waist and fist his fingers through the brown locks as the younger boy continued to ram into him.  The restraints, however, holding down his left arm and legs, proved to be an annoying hinderance but, strangely enough, also a huge turn on.    


The older of the two was completely at the younger’s mercy.  He wasn’t even able to move his hips in the slightest to get what he so desperately wanted from the encounter.  If Edward wanted his brother to move faster or thrust harder, he would have to beg for it.  


“Al!  Al- phonse... hnn!  Please!”  Edward cried out shamelessly as his sweet spot was pounded into without mercy, making him see stars.  


“‘Please’ what, Brother?”  Alphonse panted from the space above him, gazing down upon his kin in the most adoring way possible, wanting nothing more than to hear the blonde screaming for mercy beneath him as he ravished him thoroughly and claimed him for himself.  Another hard thrust was sent straight to Edward’s prostate and the breath momentarily caught in his throat.  


“Ah!  Gate!  Alphonse, please!  Faster!  Please!”  No sooner had the words left his mouth that Alphonse suddenly began diving relentlessly into his older brother, maintaining the ferocity of his thrusts, but increasing his speed ten-fold.  Though Edward had willed it, the sudden and intense pleasure which surrounded him was too much and he reached his climax for the second time that night.  


Feeling the muscles clench around him, Alphonse only lasted several seconds more before he joined the blonde alchemist on his euphoric high, releasing deep inside the older boy before collapsing on top of him.  For awhile after, silence filled the room, interrupted every so often by the gasping inhales from the two boys in the corner.  


Finally, Al pulled his flaccid member out from Edward and began to wipe his brother off with the dirtied shirt he still wore, taking care to clean the area around his many cuts to prevent _too much_ infection.  


Then, placing a tender kiss to the blonde’s forehead, Alphonse raised himself from the floor, legs still shaking in the aftermath.  


“I need to go back now, Brother.  Envy will wonder where I’ve gone to... And if he finds out I came to see you, I may never get this chance again...” the teen relented, brushing his caramel bangs out of his eyes.  “You won’t tell on me, will you?” His lower lip jutted out in the younger Elric’s signature pout, and Edward could only shake his head in response, still winded from the recent events.   


Alphonse smiled back at his brother, once more placing a chaste peck to his lips before hurrying to the other side of the room and standing in the doorway.  He steadily placed a hand on the door frame, glancing back over his shoulder at the limp form lying opposite from him, and whispered softly: “I love you, Brother mine...”  


Before he made his way up the stairs to the main level, Envy began to shift to his preferred form, allowing Alphonse to fade completely from his appearance.  As he toed the first step, the older brother’s weak response floated to his ears and caused a dangerous grin to flash across Envy’s face.  _I’ve got you, Chibi...  You’re mine now._  


“I love you, too.. Alphonse...”


	14. Chapter 14

Chapter 14

Major Edward Elric

_July 14, 1914_

 

**“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source.**

**It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.”**

**-Anais Nin**

 

Edward was dying.  He was sure of that now.  

The gasping breaths which he drew in through his cracked, abused lips had steadily become more and more strained over the passing of time.  Eventually, he couldn’t even be sure that he even _was_ still breathing.  The cuts and miscellaneous wounds along his torso would reopen whenever the alchemist drew in a particularly deep inhale, and so he had resolved himself to keep his breaths short and choppy, barely even allowing for the rise and fall of his chest.  Without this habitual movement to keep hold of his waning attention span, Edward found he had no other way to discern whether or not he was still alive.

He was still in a world of pain.  So he supposed that was something, at least... 

His wounds refused to heal- the thickened blood seeping out of them slowly, like molasses- and the skin festering around the edges of the cuts were occupying a large part of his distant mind in their decayed state.  His body refused to give back what he had been forcibly fed... the rotting flesh of his own kind being the only thing keeping him grounded to this world.  In the days which had passed since Alphonse had first come to him, Envy would visit him frequently- dealing him blows he could never hope to recover from.

The worst of it was the fire.  The monster would corner him, force him back against the wall, and light a match before thrusting the burning object in Edward’s face.  In the beginning, the alchemist stayed strong (even if he did feel a little bit wary of the fire), but Envy could sense his captive’s unwelcome comfort in the situation, and decided to change that permanently.

And that was how Edward had lost the sight in his right eye.  His depth perception was gone, stolen from him by the three inch, charred match which now stuck straight out of his retina.  Edward was plunged into a world of uncertainty.  On his left, he could be consciously aware of everything that was happening in his large cell; but, on his right, everything was foreign.  He would need to swivel his head, and jerk his body around in order to _see_ the right half of his surroundings.

But he couldn’t.  It was too painful for him to move.

And so, Envy found it most effective to hold the match closest to Edward’s right ear, where the boy would be unable to discern just how close the object was nearing to him.  He would scream, utterly terrified of the small flame- as it grew in size and radiated more unbearable heat at his unprotected body.  And Envy reveled in the alchemist’s anguish.  Lived to hear the screams of his half-brother, as the boy was plunged into a world of pain and fear.

But, despite this... Despite the fact that Envy had tactfully decided to change his practices to the psychological aspect of torture, instead of the physical... there were still times when the beast would descend upon him, like the wrath of God, and beat him until he could no longer maintain consciousness.  There were still times... too many times... when Edward would be kissed, caressed, and cared for by his brother.

.. When he would be held by General Mustang..

He had fought at first, of course.  The thought of anyone touching him in that way made him unbearably nauseous.  He sometimes would even dry heave until his saliva had dried up his tongue and throat after Alphonse visited him.  The way he acted towards his brother... The ways in which Edward wanted Alphonse to touch him, to hold him... were so undeniably wrong that it made him physically sick.  

His Alphonse was dead, wasn’t he?  Or was he really here?

It hurt too much for him to think any longer so, most often, the blonde simply allowed himself to lie back and accept his brother’s “gifts”.

That didn’t mean that he was a willing sex toy, though..

Sometimes, when he was feeling particularly violent, he would make biting motions at his brother’s form, or kick at him in a desperate plea to be left in solitude.  Edward liked it best when he was alone.  When he didn’t have to think... or move... or hope.  When he could give into the idea that, if Envy chose to stay away for just the right amount of time, death might finally be able to take him and he would be at peace.

But death never came.  And so Envy continued with his “experiments”, transforming into people that Edward knew... That Edward _loved_... in hopes of eliciting some form of reaction from his captive.  At first, the young alchemist thought that he could handle it.  He could persevere through being spoken to by his brother, his father, his mother, Havoc, Breda, Hawkeye, Hughes..

But Roy Mustang had been his breaking point.  Something so painful had happened in his mind when he had raised his head to greet the approaching form of his commanding officer, striding towards him with that smug grin that Edward had always wanted to smack right off of his pompous face.

But right then... Mustang’s smirk had been a ray of sunshine in the midst of his dark nightmare.  Just as Alphonse’s first appearance had been like a punch to the gut, sending his world spiraling in a thousand direction’s at once...  Roy Mustang had been a breath of fresh air after drowning for so long..

It had only taken him a few minutes to go into shock, body quivering in his C.O.’s presence.  And when the General had leaned down to whisper in the blonde’s ear, Edward’s brain had been thrown into over drive: doubt pushing its way to the forefront of his mind, and he had _fought._

He had kicked and screamed at the man before him until his throat burned and turned raw from misuse, tears cutting pathways through the dirt and grime on his cheeks as they streamed down his face.  

Mustang had attempted to restrain his flailing limbs, but Edward had still managed to land a few kicks to the older man’s jawline before being roughly pinned to the wall.  Even so, he struggled against the restraints, fought to break free up until the very moment his world had shattered to pieces.

 _“Fullmetal!  Stop it, right now!”_ His voice had been exactly how Edward had remembered it, breaking through his hysteria with it’s sharp authority, yet cradling him with a softness akin to dark silk.  Those midnight eyes shone with bewilderment... but confidence as well.  A confidence that was so purely _Mustang_ that Edward clung to it desperately, seeing that emotion as the only stable thing he could attach himself to to save himself from the uncertainty of his predicament.  In that moment, Edward had ceased fighting and had given in to the raven-haired alchemist before him..

...And the man had held him.  Through the hours which passed, as the moon had replaced the sun, and Edward’s tears had replaced his silence, he had held him close and brushed his fingers through the muddled blonde strands adorning Edward’s head.  The entire scene had been comforting... and Edward had actually felt safe enough (something which he hadn’t felt for a long, long time... not even with Alphonse) to slip into a blessed, dreamless, sleep.

.. He had woken up alone.  

Mustang, unlike Alphonse and Havoc and everyone else he had been forced to encounter in his days of captivity, hadn’t taken advantage of him in his lonely misery.  And, for the first time in his life, Edward had wondered ‘ _why not?’._

Since that first appearance, Mustang had shown up to offer Edward comfort almost as often as Alphonse had.  The only difference was the confusing lack of sex.  Alphonse took advantage of him, so why wouldn’t the General?  He would sit with Edward (being sure to remain on the side of Edward where the boy could see him), clean some of his wounds, tell him stories of Ishval and Hughes (which Hughes would later come to him and deny ever happened)... all the while, the soft sincerity never leaving his dark eyes as he regarded his abused subordinate.  He would touch him, hold him, and look at him without seeing passed him..

So, despite the fact that his body seemed to have given up on him, Edward realized that he was (unfortunately) still in the realm of the living.

The sound of the door across the room opening yanked him from his musings and he glanced up, in surprise, at the man who had been occupying his innermost thoughts, now leaning against the frame of the stairwell.  And the pretentious smirk was there, stretched across his fair face, and Edward felt his heart leap into his throat when he noticed the gleam which shone in the General’s eyes as he looked across the basement at him.  He briefly wondered why he had ever wanted to rid that face of that beautiful smile...  It was too breathtaking to ever want to live without.

Yes, Roy Mustang was the only one who could make Edward feel truly and completely _human._ Though Roy always had to be the one to come to him, the raven-haired man always seemed to sense when the blonde teen was in the midst of being dragged into a pit of self loathing, and would promptly enter the room and save him from himself.  Roy was his sanctuary.  His solace, standing tall and confident in the middle of the dark horror which surrounded them.

As the man approached, Ed observed him with a look which he hoped would convey his sincerest gratitude.  Mustang sat himself down on the ground, a short ways away from the space which Edward was occupying, and it took everything the boy had not to throw himself (restraints be damned) onto his superior in desperation.  After so long without human contact, Edward Elric just wanted to be _held._

Wordlessly, the Flame Alchemist began to wrap a bandage around the boy’s upper torso, sealing off the oozing port of his defaced automail.  They made small talk (rather, Mustang talked and Edward fought to remain conscious)... mostly about the office and how everything had returned back to normal after Mustang had defeated the Fuhrer.  The man before him gave few, if any, details and always kept his stories incredibly vague, but Edward didn’t mind.  His eyes only paid attention to the way Roy’s lips puckered slightly when he over-pronounced the ‘m’s in his words; the way his overgrown bangs continuously fell in front of his obsidian eyes, and the small shake of the head he would give to lazily move them away from his face; that smallest of smiles he would give to his young subordinate when he realized that he was rambling on about something “meaningless”...

What he didn’t know.. _couldn’t know_... was that no one word which fell from _his_ General’s lips could ever be viewed as “meaningless” in Edward’s eyes.  He held onto every syllable like a lifeline, unwilling to let go of the one thing which kept him alive.  Though he desperately wanted to die..  to see Alphonse again.. he was a coward.  He didn’t want to _die,_ in order to be _dead_.. if that even made any sense.  It was too frightening to think about what punishment a sinner like him would have to endure in the afterlife.

When Mustang deemed the automail port to be dressed well enough, he raised a gloved hand, unthinkingly, to sever the bandage with his alchemic flames.  Edward instinctively cringed, releasing a small whimper at the flames which he knew were to come.  Tears betrayed him and leaked down his cheeks as his body began to tremble in sheer terror.  The blonde could distantly hear the older man calling his name, panicked- knowing he had done something to frighten the boy- but Edward could hardly hear Roy’s anxious shouting over the roaring in his ears.

 _He’s going to burn me... just like Envy._ His mind was in a frenzy, make believing that there was an unbearable heat beginning to surround him, the tips of the flames licking at his jawline.  He sobbed in fear, scrunching his eyes tight together.  _I can’t trust anyone.  Not even Mustang.  They’ll all betray me... hurt me... in the end._ The heat had intensified dramatically, steadily taking over his entire existence and making it difficult to breathe.

“Edward!”  He couldn’t breathe.  Black smoke was filling his lungs, choking him.  He felt strong hands gripping his shoulders.. tight... they were too tight.. and he desperately tried to fight them off, but his mind was growing foggy...  He was fading slowly, allowing the flames to completely consume him.

“Fullmetal!  Dammit, look at me, Ed!”  His eyes shot open with a start, tears blurring his vision.  Mustang was there- an obscured mass of ebony and ivory- looking down at him with concern as Edward broke out of his daze.  The fire had disappeared along with any and all feeling left inside of him.  He was left, bitterly and blessedly, numb.

Wordlessly, the General wrapped the blonde child in his arms, cradling him gently as though he were a china doll that would break at the slightest of movements.  He hadn’t alchemized any flames.  It had all been in Edward’s head... and the realization of this made him sulk in his mortification.  

He was pathetic.  Hopelessly pathetic.  He didn’t deserve this kindness.  He didn’t deserve to live. 

Edward found himself wishing death would take him.  He wished so badly to see his brother again... to hold him in his arms and stay together always where no one could ever separate them again.  He felt the General’s lips moving against his grimy hair and strained his ears against the continuous roaring in his ears in order to hear his beautiful voice.

“-m so sorry, Ed..” The man mumbled into his hair.  “I wasn’t thinking about how you might react... how you might feel about my alchemy.. How you must feel about me..”  He was so still- so silent.. If only for a moment..

Then, as though struck by lightening, the man beneath him jerked and shoved the abused boy away from his body and stood.  Confused, Edward met the steel gaze of his commanding officer with red-rimmed eyes, almost glowing with the luminosity of his unshed tears.

“It’s not good for you if I stay here... I’ll only cause you more pain.  I’m so sorry, Ed.”  Turning on his heel, the General tentatively began to walk away, glancing back only after a few steps.  When he saw the dejected, heartbroken expression on the child’s face, Mustang outwardly cringed and quickened his pace.  And Edward watched him go..

It was the straw that broke him.  His mind rapidly began to shut down, curling in on itself in a last desperate attempt at protection from the outside world.  His left iris dimmed, nearly matching the pale shade of withered gold in his sightless right eye, the eyelids drooping so low that they nearly closed.  His sanity crumbled under the weight of his sufferings and with one final shudder, Edward Elric succumbed to the darkness in his mind.

He never even heard the hard footsteps on the floor above before he lost consciousness.

**“However long the night, the dawn will break.”**

  * **African Proverb**



 


	15. Chapter 15

Chapter 15

General Roy Mustang

_July 12-14, 1914_

 

**“However long the night, the dawn will break.”**

**-African Proverb**

 

Life was cruel.  It was harsh, and unfair, and simply... cruel.  Five weeks had passed since the news of Edward Elric’s death had traveled from Resembool to the home of General Mustang, and only the first of those weeks had been spent, idly, in denial.

After that, life had moved very quickly.

As it would seem, hiding in plain sight when you were wanted for murder and expected to be heading the northern front wasn’t as easy as one would imagine.  Hakuro (the bastard) had been promoted to rank of Fuhrer in King Bradley’s “absence” and, soon, headed the murder investigation when the latter’s blood was found in the demolished basement of his Central estate.  Since Hakuro had always had a special place in his heart for Roy, and because the Flame Alchemist’s ambitions to head the country weren’t exactly the best-kept secret in the military, he had decidedly placed the blame squarely on the General’s shoulders... 

It had been suspected that Mustang and his loyal Lieutenant would hide right under their noses after deserting the war in the north and, so, Central had been placed in a state of emergency.  The military urged the capitol’s residents to “stay in their homes and lie low for the remainder of the man-hunt”.  

Roy almost laughed aloud as he read the headline of the newspaper, dipping the bread into his lukewarm coffee.

“‘Homicidal Madman Threatens Central’, huh?”  He chuckled, scanning the article for the first mention of his name.  When he found there to be no reference to him, whatsoever, he sighed and tossed the newsprint into the roaring fire, watching the offending article go up in smoke.

“It’s hardly something to take lightly, General.”  Hawkeye chided from her seat across from him, sipping her coffee almost delicately.  He steepled his hands together in front of his face in frustration, choosing this action over rubbing the sore flesh around his patch, which he knew would only upset his Lieutenant further.

After Hakuro had declared him to be Public Enemy No. 1, Roy had been getting less and less sleep.  Naturally, the prospect of the entire country turning against him and sentencing him to death was nightmare worthy, in and of itself; however, it wasn’t the only thing which plagued his mind.

His most recent- as well as his most vivid- dreams consisted of a starving, beaten child, with golden hair and eyes, chained to a stone wall somewhere far away.  In his dream, Edward would call out for him, reaching for him with his eyes since his hands were incapable of doing so.  His voice was weak, as though it hadn’t been used in a long time, and every crack and hitch in his subordinate’s pleading brought Roy to a new state of heartbreak. 

He would start awake every morning, trembling and drenched in cold sweat.  After collecting himself for far longer than he would have thought he needed, he would force himself out of the embrace of his warm bed and refresh himself in the adjoining bathroom.  

He never got used to the face which was reflected back at him in the mirror.

Purple bags adorned the area beneath his sunken, desolate eyes- one of which was covered by that abhorrent midnight patch.  The lack of sleep and stressfulness of his entire predicament had taken its toll on the General’s body.  He, ultimately, looked twenty years older than he actually was; his dark hair greying slightly around his temples and wrinkles beginning to form along the crease in his forehead, giving the man permanent frown lines.  

If Hawkeye noticed his disheveled appearance, she didn’t comment on it.  He, in fact, was rather grateful for the change.  It seemed as though most people wouldn’t spare a second glance at a man who looked like he spent his meal hours at a soup kitchen.  

Not that Roy particularly _enjoyed_ looking like a homeless man but, if it meant shaking the government off of his tail..

As it happened, he and Hawkeye both had fled North, towards the Drachman border where he had supposedly been stationed.  Since the military (Hakuro specifically) knew that he had deserted the front line there, it seemed almost unthinkable that the traitor would be hiding out at a small inn, just the next town over.  Unthinkable... and, therefore, genius.

Mustang  swiveled around in his chair and surveyed the small lounge area where they were seated.  He mused that, should he emerge from this fiasco unscathed, he might just return to the charming inn.  The furnishings were styled in the traditional Amestrian way, swathed in green and silver, and remarkably felt like home.  It was elegant, yet simple... something the General would wish for in his own home.  A home that had most likely been burned to the ground by now.  He winced outwardly as he pictured all of his belongings going up in smoke.  He knew that no expense would be spared in tracking him down.  Hakuro was out for _blood_ and, as the Fuhrer of an extremely capable military, he was guaranteed to receive Mustang’s head on a silver platter sooner versus later.

The world had turned against him more quickly than he could have ever imagined, and it was times like these where he was glad to have such a capable Lieutenant at his side.  Hawkeye had arranged everything, of course.  All he had to do was ask how high she wanted him to jump.  

She had gotten them fake identification cards and fake passports, woven a completely plausible and elaborate backstory designating them as Mr. and Mrs. Chandler Howard from West  Gambekk, and even gone so far as to purchase a fake mustache for the General to wear during afternoon outings.  So far, they hadn’t hit any obstacles in their paths and no one was the wiser.  To the outside world, they were a well-choreographed couple spending their second honeymoon in the North.  Thankfully, no one had seemed to care that the Howard’s vacation had been continuing on much longer than any normal trip, and the two refugees were able to stay in the same place for the entire month without incident.

But, despite the fact that he was almost positive Hakuro had been hitting dead end after dead end in his search, he couldn’t help the overwhelming feeling of dread coiling in the pit of his stomach at the notion that something was not entirely _right._

He stood from his chair abruptly, startling a placid Lieutenant into action before he halted her with an outstretched hand.  

“No need to get antsy, Ruth.”  He dismissed, using her alias.  “I’m going to head upstairs to rest for awhile.  Come get me for dinner, will you?”  Before she could respond, the General fled upstairs, wanting so badly to just be left alone with his musings.

He was wrong if he thought that sleeping during the day would have any different of a routine than it did at night.

He sputtered as cold water was splashed onto his face by his shaking hands, frowning as the frigid temperature did nothing to better his appearance.  Roy tiredly grabbed the nearest towel to him, not even caring whether it was clean or dirty, and used it to gently wipe his face.

It had been a particularly vivid dream today, and those golden eyes, swimming with desperation, were still imprinted on the backs of his eyelids.  The mess of obsidian hair splashed a few droplets of water onto the bathroom mirror as he shook his head to clear his thoughts.

It was no use...  Edward still followed him, no matter where he ran.  It had continued this way ever since Hawkeye’s voice had shattered his world with the news of his subordinate’s passing.

He couldn’t help but feel as though... as though it simply _couldn’t_ be.  He had watched the older Elric fight on numerous occasions; constantly standing tall against any obstacle he encountered, almost as though daring his challenger to look him in the eyes.  Why should death be any different?

Edward wouldn’t succumb without a fight... He couldn’t back down- couldn’t _submit_ to anyone or anything- and certainly wouldn’t allow himself to die.  It was that dogged, persistent characteristic of the boy which had caused Mustang to fall, head over heels, for him in the first place.  It was the blonde’s stubborn willpower which always seemed to captivate him, and it was impossible to imagine Edward without that fire in his eyes.

 _Well... almost impossible_ , he thought as his mind drifted back to dwell on his night terror.  His eyes... they had held such a hopeless desperation that the mere remembrance of such an emotion present in his subordinate’s eyes caused the man to shudder.  He prayed to a God he hadn’t believed in since Ishval that his dreams were just that.. dreams.  Roy hated to imagine he could actually have such vivid premonitions but, then again, he had been faced with stranger phenomenon in his lifetime.  

In a daze, the General made his way back across the room and sat down on his bed, face in his hands, as he tried to recall other parts of the nightmare.  A flash of green, a deranged smirk, the cold darkness of the room the boy was being kept in... and the blood.

There was always so much blood..

But never any clues to suggest where his subordinate actually _was_. Edward could be in Aerugo somewhere, and Mustang would be none the wiser.  After the first few nights of the reoccurring nightmare, Mustang had thought that the flash of green might have been someone’s hair.  But, as he woke himself up a little more, he berated himself for being so stupid.  Green hair?  Who had ever heard of such a thing?  

There was only one thing he knew for certain, and that was, somewhere out there, Edward was still alive- still fighting- and that Roy had undoubtably failed him by letting him suffer for so long.

He hadn’t voiced his belief to Hawkeye, yet.  He knew the pity he would find in her eyes as she watched him desperately cling to the feeble hope that his youngest subordinate was still alive.  He didn’t think he could handle it, in his crumbling state of mind, if his loyal Lieutenant lost her faith in him along with everything that was happening.

But, if he didn’t hurry, Edward was sure to die.  

And he couldn’t allow that to happen.

He couldn’t lose him..

 

%%%%%%%

 

The next morning at the inn would be their last, Hawkeye announced over dinner.  She suggested that they leave the country for a little while, to allow things in Amestris to settle down, and Roy felt his stomach bottom out.  The steak sitting on his plate suddenly lost its appeal and he folded his silverware back into his napkin, turning to stare out the frosted window at the falling snow.

If they left now, any chance they had at saving Edward would slip indefinitely through his fingers.  His subordinate would be gone forever and sleep would never come easily to him, knowing that it was all his fault.

“Is something wrong?” He glanced up at her, seated across the table from him with concern etched into her features.  In direct contrast to his plate, her food was nearly half eaten with bits of the white porcelain peeking out from beneath the stuffing.  Roy gave her a wary smile.

“Besides the fact that my entire life seems to be falling apart?” He countered with a sad chuckle. “Nothing I can’t handle.”  Her hand found its way across the table and settled atop his own, and she met his eyes with fierce determination.

“You think I haven’t noticed, General, but I have.  Every now and then you’ll get this distant look in your eye and you’ll excuse yourself to be alone.  What’s on you mind?”  He glanced away from her as fear of rejection gripped his heart.  She would pity him... He didn’t want her pity.. “Please talk to me, Sir.  I can’t help if I don’t know the problem.”

With a resigned sigh, Roy looked down at their joined hands, glad for the momentary comfort, before parting his lips and gasping out the thought that had been keeping him up at night for the past month:

“He’s not dead.”  

“Sir?”  The word was hesitant, as though she truly believed him to have lost his mind.  His fist clenched as anger overtook him and he kept silent for a few breaths, hoping to not bite of his Lieutenant’s head in his frustration.  Didn’t she know that he knew it was crazy?!  Alphonse had even told them that Edward was gone!  What more proof did he need?!  Why couldn’t he just accept that and move on with his crumbling existence?

“Fullmetal.  He’s not dead.”  Mustang ripped his hand out from under hers as he saw the sadness laced in her brown orbs.  _Just listen to me, Riza..  Please...  I’m not crazy, just please hear me out.._ He wanted to cry, choking on his words as they tumbled from his mouth.  “I know it sounds crazy, but I know he’s still alive.”

“Roy..”  The blonde woman glanced around the small restaurant, as if daring any passersby to be eavesdropping on their conversation.  “Even if there was some possibility that you could be right, we’ve already looked everywhere he could be..”

“Not everywhere.”  She seemed startled by his interruption, but waited for him to continue before she discouraged his sudden train of thought. 

“Do you remember when we checked down by the river?  You said we should look there first, as it was the last place we saw him before he and Alphonse went missing.”  He turned back to the window, watching the white flakes slowly drift to the ground below and wondering whether it was snowing in Central, as well, while he waited for the Lieutenant’s response.

“I remember..”  She finally spoke.  He continued on, paying little attention to the concerned look she was giving him:

“I’ve been thinking about what Fullmetal said that night... about defeating the person responsible for fueling all of humanities wars.  I didn’t remember it right away, in light of everything else that had and has been happening... but he said he was going to an abandoned building where he had been told he would find the creator of the homunculi.”  Just then, the waiter came by to refill their water glasses, exchanging a pleasant greeting with the two soldiers, and their conversation was temporarily interrupted.  When the amiable man left, however, Hawkeye was quick to address his previous statement.

“An abandoned building?  Are you sure, General?”  He nodded sullenly, taking a rather pathetic bite of his meal as he reminisced on that final conversation with the Fullmetal Alchemist.

“That’s what he said.”  He looked at her pointedly.  “But, we didn’t look in the buildings at the riverfront... just along the road.”  Her brow furrowed slightly before she also nodded, remembering their tireless search along the water-edged street.

“That’s right.”  Mustang remained silent, though his desire was clawing a hole in his stomach as it grew with the passing seconds.  Just the thought of Edward being alone out there, even for another second, made the General unbelievably nauseous and pained with guilt.  He didn’t want to be the one to propose the idea of returning to Central to continue their search... not when he knew she’d regard him with something akin to pity... but Hawkeye, ever the observant one, caught on immediately.

“You’re suggesting we go back?  With Hakuro’s troops swarming the entirety of Central?  Are you out of your damned mind?”  And that was exactly what her expression portrayed.  She had thought that Roy had completely lost it... and he wasn’t sure if he could blame her.  His fist clenched beneath the table, as the General tried to stop it from trembling.  He really was falling apart..

“It’s my fault he’s gone, Riza.  If he’s still alive out there, then someone or something has been keeping him away from us against his will.  Fullmetal would never just disappear like this...  And even if he did, Alphonse would be with him... not kept out of the dark like some stranger.  If Al truly believes that his brother is dead, then this must be part of something much bigger than we anticipated.”  It was as though a weight had been lifted off of his chest at his confession.  After nearly a month of the endless nightmares of the tortured blonde teenager, Roy thought he actually saw his Edward enigma give him a soft smile of gratitude.

“But what role could Edward play in all of this?  Do you think he failed in defeating the one in charge of the homunculi?”  The Lieutenant was genuinely curious, placing her faith in her commanding officer even though the largest part of her was screaming at her to turn tail and run.  Mustang blinked suddenly, as though remembering her and scrunched his brow in pain.  Whether it be from his wound, or the whirling thoughts in his mind, she couldn’t be sure..

“I don’t know...” He finally replied.  “But it seems that way.  They might be planning to use him to fuel another war...  The tension between Amestris and Drachma are mounting, and even the tensions between the people of Amestris, themselves, have been escalating recently.”  He confessed.  The clatter of silverware hitting porcelain caused his head to jerk up and look across the table at his companion, who had dropped the utensils in her shock.

“Using him?  Edward would never agree to do anything like that!”  Her voice was laced with more emotion than he was used to hearing from the Lieutenant, and in the quieted restaurant- hushed by the loud clammer- the outburst seemed to echo.  After sending a few glares to the patrons at the surrounding tables, the din of the room returned to normal and Roy resumed their conversation in a gentler tone.

“I know he wouldn’t...  But they’re holding him against his will!  Probably feeding him lies to psychologically torment him!”  The skin on Riza’s face paled considerably.

“Y- You don’t think they’re torturing him, do you?”  Her words were choked, and Mustang suddenly berated himself for thinking that he was the only one who cared about the boy.  Of course Hawkeye loved Edward!  The entire team was a family; they had been connected to each other ever since the day Edward walked into his office as the youngest military dog in Amestrian history.  Ever since he had found Edward lying in that bed in Resembool: frail and weak and helpless..

The General’s mouth went dry as the memory of his most recent nightmare hit him like a freight train.  There was so much blood... so much desperation in his young subordinate’s eyes...

His vision swam and became red tinged around the edges.  If they so much as laid one finger on Edward-!  A calming hand on his clenched fist brought him back to reality and he met Hawkeye’s concerned gaze 

“We’ll leave later tonight.  If we travel under the cover of night, we may be able to avoid suspicion.”

 

%%%%%%%

 

“It really just had to be a church, didn’t it?”  They had stopped outside of the abandoned building, and the General lifted his head to look up at the crumbling gargoyles.  He gave a slight shiver at the eeriness of the entire scene.  Riza turned her gaze upon her commander and quirked a brow.

“Something wrong with churches, Sir?”  He shrugged his shoulders half-heartedly, not even bothering to tell her off for not sticking to their cover.  Since they were alone, he supposed it was alright to be themselves for the first time in many weeks.

“I don’t know... I just always feel like someone is glaring at me every time I step foot in one.  You know... Someone _up there_.”  At the final two words, a cold chill ran the length of his spine and he almost jerked at the suddenness of it.

“I thought you didn’t believe in God, General.”  He barked out a good-natured laugh and soon the Lieutenant joined him in a moment of mirth, the corner of her mouth twitching upward slightly as she regarded the raven haired man.

“I don’t.  Not since Ishval, anyway... but that doesn’t mean I don’t believe in sins.”  Hawkeye nodded, easily visualizing the immense weight the General had sitting on his shoulders.  She had heard from Hughes that Roy had once tried to take his life after the war..

Seeing the face he wore now... even just speaking casually about it... she finally allowed herself to see the man’s weak side.  

She didn’t care for the sour mood.  Gesturing forward with one of her hands, she nodded for Mustang to take the lead, smirking again at his obvious discomfort.

“I suppose you have a point there.  After you, Sir.”  He frowned at her, looking as though he’d rather parade into a lion’s den with a trumpet blaring than step foot in the sacred building.

It was nothing less than he’d expected: desolate, crumbling, and slightly reeking of musk and decay.  The church itself, Roy mused, must have been beautiful when it was still in use.  An incredible example of ancient Amestrian architecture, it was twice as tall as it was wide and was complete with stained glass windows and flying buttresses.  The pews were worn down with age, but the General imagined that they must have once been a rich mahogany in color, designed to match the alter.

... And alter which had been deformed with alchemy.

Mustang sucked in a breath as he surveyed the arched marble, fused together with bits of wood in order to create an entrance of some sort.  The mere fact that the structure hadn’t been demolished and showed no signs of age made it apparent of just how recently it had been created.  And if Roy had to guess, he’d venture to say that it had only been here for a couple of months.  As the Lieutenant followed in behind her commander, the breath caught in her throat and he knew that she would be noticing the same things as he had.

“Is that-?”  The words died in her throat as she quickly approached the make-shift doorway.  Hand never leaving her holster, she cautiously peered inside before circling around the structure to secure their surroundings.  Roy felt a great surge pride as he watched his subordinate work, flawlessly scoping out their available escape routes and executing each one to their full extent in her mind as she wound her way around the alter.

“Well, at least our work has already been done for us..” Roy mused, sliding a gloved hand over the smooth surface of the transmuted marble.  The doorway led to a tunnel of some sort, and by the slope of the stairway and the total darkness further down, he guessed that it extend quite a ways underground.  He gazed down into the black abyss, the alchemist in him marveling at the apparent symmetry of the carved tunnel.  _Definitely the work of Fullmetal.._

Hawkeye finished her surveillance and sidled up beside him, peering into the darkness for a moment, before gently touching his shoulder.

“Are you ready, Roy?”  The use of his first name was not uncomfortable to him, rather it settled on his anxious frame like a soft blanket.  The intentional intimacy of that act seemed so right in this moment..

The moment when everything was finally falling into place..

With a renewed resolution, Mustang squared his shoulders and faced the infinite tunnel with fierce determination.  Edward was here.  Wherever this bottomless hole led, the General was sure they’d find the blonde alchemist waiting for them... just as he had been in Roy’s dreams.

“This is it,” he breathed.  Then, he took the first step on his descent into hell.

 


	16. Chapter 16

Chapter 16

Alphonse Elric

_July 14, 1914_

 

**“Sadness flies away on the wings of time.”**

**-** **Jean de La Fontaine**

 

It had been two months.

Two months since Alphonse Elric had gotten his original, human body back.  Two months since he had returned to Resembool after journeying for so long with his brother.  Two months since he had mistakenly slept with his childhood friend. 

Two months since Edward had died.

How long had it been since he had slept for longer than two hours at a time?  When had he eaten his last meal?  His stomach audibly growled in protest, signaling that it had been far longer than a few hours.  _More like a few days,_ he mused bitterly.

Al knew that his body was rebelling against him.  Everything he did was not without consequence.  Every time he closed his eyes for longer than a minute, he would see his brother.  Some nights were better than others, with dreams of Edward simply holding him close and comforting him while he cried.  

But, often, that was not the case.  .

Most nights, Alphonse would suffer from nightmares of his older sibling giving him a look of complete betrayal- the mortal wound still dripping blood from the very center of his chest.  Al would reach for his brother, begging for Edward to forgive him, but the blonde would always ignored his pleas and turn away.  Sometimes, the younger boy felt it would be better for the imagined blonde to outwardly hate him: to yell at him, or hit him, or even spit on him.  

He couldn’t take the solitude of Edward ignoring him.  It made the realization that his brother wasn’t there all the more painful..

The first few weeks after he had returned home... if Alphonse could even call it that any longer... had been spent in the company of his Granny Pinako and Winry.  Tensions were almost suffocating between the three of them as they tried, hopelessly to occupy the same space as one another.

Winry and he had agreed not to discuss that one night... and though it made things better in a way, it also made things a lot worse.  The intimacy had made everything feel alright, as wrong as it was, and now that it was being kept locked away like some terrible thing, the loneliness was threatening to consume them both.  When Granny had come home a few days later, she was instantly uncomfortable with the tense situation and had demanded to know what had happened between the two teens. When they refused to say anything, she had turned her frustration onto Alphonse, demanding information about his brother’s passing, even after the boy had built up his walls around him and had refused to say anything more. Eventually, Edward was no longer brought up at all... and that only served to increase the hostility in the household.

After weeks passed by, largely in silence, Alphonse had finally decided to stay at a newly built inn on the outskirts of town, instead.  Winry and Pinako had been visibly upset at this sudden decision but had ultimately relented that it was for the best.

He had been on his own ever since.  

He clutched his knees tighter to his chest as he leaned back against the headboard and looked out the window.  He liked it here.  It was quiet.  It was away from people.

People only made things worse.

Alphonse had decided that he had probably lost his mind on the day that Edward had died... for what sane person would fear both loneliness, as well as the company of others?  How did it make any sense?  Whenever he was alone in his hotel room, he would cry and tremble with fear as the darkness of the all-too-large room slowly ate away at his crumbling soul.  It was times like these when Alphonse felt as though, without Edward, he would surely die.  

When it would finally become too much for the boy to handle, he would phone the Rockbell residence- sometimes waking the women up at three or four in the morning- seeking comfort in their familiarity.  And comfort him it did.  His hands would stop trembling, his vision would lose the haze it had accumulated around its edges, and the dark space around him would seem to lighten in the smallest amount... just at the sound of Winry’s voice.

He would convince himself, after replacing the receiver in its cradle, that maybe he needed to be around the Rockbells... Maybe he needed to be around the familiarity of his childhood so that he wouldn’t be alone..

Alphonse would pack his things and rush over to their house, and would insist on spending a few nights with Winry and Granny.  They would take his hand and lead him to the kitchen where they would give him a cup of cocoa to ease his nerves.  After a few minutes, Winry would begin to set up the couch in the living room where Alphonse would sleep, although they always appeared hesitant at allowing him to stay...

And when Alphonse packed up his things and left the very next morning, long before the two women would wake up, he would realize the reason for their hesitance.  He was disgusted with himself, but he couldn’t help it.

Being around Winry... and around Granny... it only reminded him of Edward.  He couldn’t stay in a house that was so familiar to him, where he and his brother had grown up and spent their time so freely, doing what they loved.  He couldn’t stand to meet the eyes of his extended family and pretend that everything was alright...

Because it wasn’t.

Things hadn’t been right for a very long time..

Burying his head into his knees, Alphonse tried desperately to shake the negative thoughts from his mind, but to no avail. It didn’t do him any good to dwell on his mental and emotional instability... it only made the heartache worse. 

 _If Brother were here, he’d tell me what to do,_ Al mused, smiling grimmly. _Either that, or tell me what I nut job I’ve turned out to be._ He glanced over at the bedside table and read the slowly moving hands. Another night without sleep... but hopefully his little plan would cure his insufferable insomnia.

Two rectangular envelopes sat patiently on the bedside table, the howling wind no match for the silver alarm clock which held them in place. There was no writing upon either of their pearl surfaces, but Alphonse already knew what they contained.

Tickets.

 _Train_ tickets, to be precise.

Going to Central sure as hell wasn’t going to fix everything... his brother would remain dead and his soul would remain shattered... but, hopefully, (if he could just get away from these damned memories racing through his brain) he would be able to distract himself from the pain long enough to get a few hours of shut eye. The second ticket was for Winry, of course. Or Granny... whoever would be crazy enough to accompany a lifeless fool like him into the heart of a bustling city.

He needed someone to ground him to this world; someone to remind him not to get carried away or do something reckless.

Alphonse shut his eyes tightly as he remembered the first few nights he had spent alone after Edward’s passing. After years of being unable to experience any sensation at all, the emotional pain and heartache of losing his brother had descended upon him in endless waves, making him wish he was back in the armor again. 

It had hurt... Oh, God, had it hurt. But, even worse than the constant grief in his chest, was that he had no one to turn to. He had _needed_ to talk about it with someone, have someone he could lean on, to be there when he cried. But the person who had always been there for him before... Well, he wasn’t exactly in any position to offer Alphonse the comfort he sought.

No one had been there (or rather he hadn’t asked anyone for help) and his thoughts had turned _dark_... Darker than the boy himself was willing to admit out loud.. and his depression only continued to worsen. One night, when his mood had plunged so low that he was certain his last shred of sanity had snapped, he had tried to end it all:

The pain...

The grief...

The loneliness...

(Un)fortunately, the elderly woman living in the apartment across from him had called in for a courtesy check-up, and the landlord came knocking just as Alphonse was pulling back the hammer.

Where he’d gotten a gun, he’d never remember..

Looking at the clock once more, the brunette sighed and flopped down on the mattress, pulling the blankets tightly around him. 3:11.. another night without sleep.

Tomorrow he would visit the Rockbells... maybe stay for the full day and join them for dinner... Somehow, he’d work up the courage to talk to them about the trip to Central. He was sure that one of them would be willing to accompany him (since it allowed one of the women to stay behind and look after the shop) once he explained his reasonings. Resembool was too quiet... Edward often said so as well... and the quiet gave you too much time to think and dwell on the past.

And dwelling was not a comfortable pastime for sinners..

Alphonse shuddered into his covers as he thought about what his mom must think about the man he turned out to be. His accomplishments (if you could call them that) weren’t exactly “refrigerator material”, and his current mindset left something to be desired..

He shook his head to chase away the negative thoughts. No, it didn’t do him well to dwell on the past. The only time he should be concerned with, should be the present.. The best thing for his to do now would be to hunker down and try to close his eyes for at least a little while.

So he did.

And four hours later, when he raised himself from the mattress to prepare for the day ahead, he refused to acknowledge the fact that that bags beneath his eyes had deepened, due to another night lying awake in fear. 

He was used to spending the nights alone... But that didn’t make them any less lonely.

%%%%%

“Just a minute!” True to its word, the door swung open minutes later to reveal a blonde woman in red overalls. Her hair was tied into a loose bun, with a straight clip holding it in place. Alphonse briefly noticed how much his childhood friend seemed to have age right before his eyes. Her eyes were sharper, her face less round, and her appearance had an overall worn appearance to it, as though her soul had matured much more quickly than her adolescent body.

“Al!” The azure eyes grew wide in shock and discomfort. She leaned up against the doorframe, crossing her arms over her chest in effort to appear casual. “What are you doing all the way out here? I thought you weren’t going to stay here any longer...”

“Ah... I- I’m not..” He could feel himself becoming flustered under her scrutiny. What familiarity and comfortability had been between them as children had effectively disappeared a month ago. In this moment, he was a stranger standing on her front porch, having no business and no right to ask her to uproot her life for him.“I-”

“Winry! Quick interrogating the man while he’s still under that hot sun! Where are your manners?” The stout woman appeared from the kitchen, with a large black dog hot on her heels. Den’s automail appeared new, and Alphonse figured they must have only recently done a tune-up.

“Oh, sorry..” She stepped out of the doorway, not sounding sorry at all. Winry had changed- not only in appearance, but in her attitude towards him as well. From kind and caring, she had become indifferent and borderline hostile in some situations. He supposed he deserved it, though. After all, he _had_ been the one to make it clear that he didn’t want to be close with the two women any longer.

... It was too painful.. And they would only leave in the end.

Alphonse stepped into the house and contemplated removing his jacket before he thought better of it. Best not to make himself at home.. He was a stranger, after all. 

“I won’t bother you for too long, I know you’re busy with the shop...” Granny cut him off with a wave of her hand, bringing it around to snatch the pipe out of her mouth so that she could speak.

“Nonsense, Alphonse, you’re family. You know you’re always welcome here.” He cringed at the word ‘family’. He knew Granny was only using those words as a hopeless attempt to ease the tense situation. But the damage had already been done. He was broken, beyond repair... He had no more home to return to. The Rockbell women knew, probably better than anyone else, that Edward and Alphonse had found their home in each other. Since their mother had passed, it was only natural for them to cling to their only remaining family and, so, one was never without the other.  They were comfortable wherever they happened to end up because they had each other. It was the main (but not the only) reason why they had considered the Rockbell home a safe haven to return to after a particularly stressful mission.

“Y-yes...” He hated this. The tension made everything awkward and he was a horrible public speaker to begin with. Now that these two people were so distant to him, he felt no comfort in their presence and floundered for the correct way to act around them. WOuld they even care that he was leaving? Would one of them really drop everything to run off with him, a man they didn’t even know anymore?

“It’s just that I... I’ve been... uhm..” Winry cocked her head in question at his mutterings, appearing concerned for a change. So she was still capable of looking at him like that. She was still able to see this _murder_ as family... at least enough to potentially care about him. His stomach churned with nausea, protesting against the intimacy of the thought.

“Al?” The tension was thickening, unbearably, and so his mouth did what his brain had been fretting over for the past fifteen minutes..

“I’m leaving.” He blurted, suddenly. The women balked and threw matching incredulous looks at him, as though they were waiting on baited breath for him to walk out the door at a moment’s notice. Realization dawned upon him, and he resisted the urge to smack himself in the forehead. He swallowed loudly, before clarifying, “Resembool. I’m leaving... Resembool.” It took all of two seconds before the blonde teen descended upon him with pain in her blue eyes.

“What? Why?” It took every shred of his willpower to force himself to not look away from her. The pain in her eyes was real... It was real and just so fucking _raw_ that it ripped the breath right out of your lungs.

“It’s too quiet here.. And I can’t go anywhere without thinking abou-” He choked on his words, swallowing back the bile that had crawled up his throat at the horrendous memories which had surfaced suddenly. He turned his gaze away, finally, and studied the wall, instead. “I have my reasons. I just need to get away.”

“And where will you go? Back to Central?” Winry’s words contained a bite to them. Alphonse knew that she was becoming angry with him, but couldn’t fathom what had possibly been the catalyst.

“Actually... Yes.” He turned back to her, seeing the blatant ire in her expression for the first time. “Brother and I met a lot of people there who helped us on our journey.. and I bet they were pretty worried when we never came back.. I think that if I visit them and tie up any loose ends I’ve left open, I might actually be able to gain some closure.” TO his surprise, the girl laughed at him.

“And what will you tell them when they ask how he died, Al? You won’t even tell _us_ , your own _family!_ You haven’t said a single fucking-” 

“Winry!” Pinako looked utterly shocked at her granddaughter’s choice in language, but the teenager quickly cut back into the conversation, giving the older woman a clear look of warning.

“No, Grandma, it needs to be said!” She turned to him, the loose ends of her hair flying around behind her like a golden tornado. “Al, since you came back to Resembool, you haven’t been _right._ You’ve been scared and alone and... _confused_. You _don’t know_ what you need! What do you think is going to happen when you run back to Central with your tail between your legs? You think going back to the city where you and Ed lived for _four_ years is really going to bring you _closure_?

“You need to see someone, Al. Someone _professional_. Someone who can help you deal with all the _shit_ that’s messing with your mind right now! This isn’t easy for _any_ of us, Al! Losing Ed... it hurts... a _lot_. But what hurts even more is the fact that you can’t-” she shut her eyes, and shook her head slowly, biting her lower lip. He could distinctly see that her eyes were brimming with tears, since she had continuously been inching closer to him. With a shuddering breath, she continued on:

“... No. That you _won’t_ talk to us, Al. You’re keeping all of this sadness and anger inside of you and it’s tearing you to pieces. It’s hurting us to see you in so much _pain_ and you’re not letting us help you get through it _._ ” Her voice fell silent, and no one dared speak a word. In all honesty, there was nothing that could have been said in that moment that wouldn’t throw them all into a fit of tears. After opening and shutting her mouth a few times, Winry finally worked up the strength to finish.

“The truth is,” she murmured, “we’re afraid that we’re going to lose you, too.” With that, she had finished speaking to her heart’s content, and now had nothing to do but wait for Alphonse’s reaction.

Gate, he was an asshole. He knew that all of this had been his own fucked up way of handling his grief (and he had definitely known that it was fucked up) and he tried to distance himself from the women as much as possible- not only to protect himself, but also for them. He knew that he was on a path to self-destruction. Only a few weeks after his brother had died, he had faced the sharp realization that he was _in love_ with him. Alphonse still had not come to terms with that awareness, and probably never would. What did it matter now that Edward was gone?

“Win...” He felt a teardrop leave his eye and quickly wiped it away, not even realizing he had been crying. “Thank you.” The shock was evident on her face as she raised her eyes to meet his. Whatever reaction she had been anticipating, he had most likely done the opposite.

“I know I’ve been distant and I’m sorry... But that’s why I think this trip will be good for me. It’ll help take my mind away from all of this,” he waved his arms around in front of him, searching for the word to describe his situation, “whatever it is... and it might be what I need to get out of this funk..” When she didn’t say anything, he figured it was safe to continue.

“But... I’m afraid..” he admitted. “I don’t want to make the journey alone, in case something happens that makes everything worse.” Winry quirked an eyebrow in his direction, setting her wrench down on the coffee table.

“You want us to come with you?” Alphonse grinned sheepishly, praying that his intuition had been correct and that the women would be alright if they were apart for awhile. It seemed as though, since Alphonse had returned, Winry and Granny had been clinging more to each other. Perhaps that was what Winry had been talking about before... how they were afraid of losing him because he hadn’t been opening up to them. Talking about these sorts of things and being around each other must be their way of coping with the grief of losing the oldest Elric and, if that was the case, being alone may not be the best thing for either of them at the moment.

“I- uhm... I only bought two tickets...” He answered, shrugging. “Like I said... I know you’re busy, and all...” Pinako laughed suddenly and smiled warmly at him. Walking over to stand beside him, she inhaled a mouthful of smoke before removing her pipe from between her lips and gesturing with it at him.

“Such a dear, Alphonse. Even when you’re thinking about yourself, you’re still thinking of others first. Winry, why don’t you take the trip with him. I’m sure it’ll do you some good to visit the big city and clear your head. In any case,” she turned to he granddaughter, winking, “we could use some new spare parts for our patrons.” The girl nodded half-heartedly, placing her hands on her hips. She turned her azure eyes onto the brunette once more and sighed in irritation.

“Alright... though I still don’t think this is a good idea..” 

“Maybe you’ll get to stop in by Gracia and Elysia! I’m sure they’d be thrilled if you baked them a pie with Miss Gracia’s recipe!” Alphonse’s ever-perfected ‘change-of-topic’ technique had worked wonderfully. Winry’s eyes lit up instantly and a beaming smile replaced the slight frown that her face had worn only moments ago. 

“Yeah! You’re right! I was working on it super hard a few months back and finally got it right! I’d love to see how they like it!” Slowly coming out of her daydream, Winry latched onto Al’s upper arm- appearing very much like the excited tomboy he had grown up with. “When do we leave?” He couldn’t stop the overwhelming feeling of normalcy which overcame him. Everything seemed to be returning to it’s familiarity... as though his universe was slowly being put back together after being shattered to pieces.

Somehow, Alphonse knew that this trip to Central was going to be a good thing... and it was going to make everything whole once again. 

 "Tonight."

 

 


	17. Chapter 17

Chapter 17  
General Roy Mustang  
July 14, 1914 

“I'm so lost without you. Feeling lonely, scared, and cold. I'm so lost without you. Tell me baby, when are you coming home?”  
\- Roch Voisine, Love Never Dies

“W-what..” Roy’s tongue felt as though it had dried up completely and disappeared. No command from his reeling brain could force the organ to form the words he so desperately wanted to say. What the hell... is this?  
After continuing down the seemingly never-ending tunnel, shrouded in darkness, the two officers had finally emerged into what appeared to be an underground city. Nestled in a wide cavern deep under the very belly of Central, rows of town houses extending as far back as the eye could see. The cobblestone streets were perfectly paved- not a stone out of place- and the houses appeared ancient (though the paint and rooftops seemed to be in good condition). Roy felt his breath quicken as his brain struggled to comprehend what he was seeing. The city routes mirrored the city that they were currently under exactly. In fact, the ghost town that he was looking at appeared to be an exact replica of Central... or, rather, the city he was so familiar with was a replica of this one. It was almost as though someone had taken Central and had thrown it back in time a hundred years, and then tossed it underground..  
But, why?  
Beside him, his Lieutenant appeared to be in a similar state of shock, her mouth repeatedly opening and closing as though she wanted to speak, but couldn’t.  
The city, itself, was completely deserted. The lights were off in every home, and some of the doors waved eerily upon their hinges, fluttering open with the breath of the invisible wind. It was too quiet. The type of silence one would experience after a battle during war. The silence of loneliness, of guilt, of betrayal..  
... of death..  
“What is this place?” His tongue had finally returned to the realm of the living, dictating the words being screamed by every nerve and fiber of his being. The terror gripping his heart turned the words into a horrified whisper.   
“It looks just like Central: rows upon rows of buildings..” She gracefully paced over to the opposite side of him, mystified by the way the houses appeared to stretch on forever. She suddenly gasped, turning towards her commander with horror in her eyes. “You don’t think-.. There wouldn’t be people living down here, would there?”  
“I would sincerely hope not but, honestly, I’m prepared for just about anything after this discovery...” His voice went quiet as his single eye rested upon a large building far off to the right. The detail in its architectural design was ornate, signifying the prestige of the giant structure. Nothing about the building should have stood out to him.. it should have been like all the others- cold and unfeeling, abandoned and dark..  
But this particular building was lit up like a Christmas tree.  
The obviousness of it sent shivers up the General’s spine. It was almost as though someone was screaming, ‘Look at me! Here I am!’... and from his experience in dealing with these sort of situations, where he and his target were playing a game of cat and mouse, he knew that it was never this easy. Thousands of red flags went off in his brain and his breath shortened even more as he contemplated what to do. His labored breathing alerted Hawkeye to his peril, however, and as her eyes found the source of his trepidation, she quickly reached out to grip his forearm.  
“Sir..” Her quivering voice exposed her fear. She, too, felt the wrongness of the situation. Every cell in his body screamed at him to turn around, to go back to Central and admit defeat to the new Fuhrer. It begged him to leave and walk away from the blonde alchemist he had come to love so dearly. I’ve come this far, he thought. Edward... I know you’re here. If this building is your way of giving me a sign, then you have a twisted sense of humor..  
“The lights are on...” he finally replied, a twisted smile on his face .“Let’s go see if there’s anyone home.” As he lifted his foot to step toward the outer ledge extending around the cave, the grip on his forearm tightened and pulled him back.  
“Are you sure that’s wise?” It was rare to see his Lieutenant this shaken. The Hawk was typically strong and unwavering, standing tall when things seemed hopeless. The person before him was a quivering little girl.   
She was afraid.  
Well, so was he..  
He reached out a hand to lay it over hers and bent down to look into her eyes, offering her a small smile of comfort.   
“Lieutenant, if there’s someone occupying that building- living here- I’d be willing to bet my life on Fullmetal being there, as well..” It was like watching a wall being built right before him. Lieutenant Hawkeye swallowed her fear and replaced it with a mask of stone. She nodded her heads stiffly and the affirmation was all the General needed to begin the journey down to the brightly lit ballroom.   
%%%%%%%  
He rested an open palm upon the sturdy wooden door. They were double-doors, something you didn’t see too often unless the building was large enough to make up for the consumption of space.. and these doors sure took up a fair amount of it. They were each twice as wide as Mustang was tall, and nearly tripled his height. The wooden surfaces were adorned with scratched and subtle dents, some of the gold paint chipping away from the metal handles and detailed embellishments, signifying the wear this entrance had endured.   
Slightly smaller doors littered the wall on either side of the main entrance, totaling approximately thirteen or fourteen alternative exits on just the front of this building. Roy took a heavy sigh. He could vaguely hear music playing on the other side of the thick wood and it only served to strengthen his belief that they had truly found what they had come searching for. He gripped the cloth of his ignition gloves and gave each a firm tug to ease some of the anxiety building in his chest.  
“You have the communicator I gave you, right?” The two-way radios had been exchanged at some point during their walk, in case they should happen to be separated. The blonde seemed startled by his sudden outburst, but regained her composure quickly, casting a weary eye at her commander’s jittery appearance. Apprehension, exhaustion, anger, hatred, excitement... all of these turbulent emotions were bubbling just underneath the surface of the General’s calm facade, and Hawkeye knew that the force of such emotions could make the man unstable.  
“Of course, sir. Are you sure you’ll be able to figure yours out all on your own without my help?” She chided, hoping for a little normalcy to return to his features. The man simply brushed her off with a simple: “I think I can manage...”   
Roy looked like a wild animal: fingers twitching, pupils dilated, hair mussed and unkept at the top of his head. The Lieutenant had seen him like this only once before, and it had been brief. Since she hadn’t been in Ishval with the other troops, she could only imagine the horror they had witnessed on the front lines. And being given the title of “the Hero of Ishval”... the news had chilled her to her core when the Fuhrer had announced it to the military assembly..  
She remembered, clearly, being called to the Mustang estate by Roy’s war buddy, Maes Hughes.. that had been the first time she and him had met. It had only been a few days since the troops had returned home from the war, and her commanding officer had yet to make an appearance. According to the be-speckled man, Roy hadn’t left his house since returning from the train station that Friday and Maes had been staying with him to make the nights seem ‘less lonely’.   
When he had opened the door to accept the change of clothes she had been asked to retrieve, Hughes had looked worn and fearful. Muttering something about it being ‘a bad time’, he didn’t even have enough time to shut the door completely before hell had broken loose.  
It had been her blonde hair, Hawkeye had been told afterwards. Since her hair was the exact shade of the two doctors he had been ordered to execute during the war, it had apparently sent the newly-appointed Colonel into a state of hysteria. Just the short glimpse he had gotten of his Lieutenant through the cracked door had caused him to collapse in a fit of anguished laughter.  
Until that day, she hadn’t even known such a thing was possible. But, apparently, it was the result of self-loathing, guilt, and immense sadness. She had immediately been instructed to leave by Maes, and so she had. But that didn’t mean she would forget what she had seen on that day.  
That was the day she had decided that she was going to spend her life by his side, to make sure he was never reduced to such a state ever again..  
“Remember,” he spoke up, capturing the woman’s wandering attention once more, “call me as soon as you see anything.” His hands continued to shake and his breath had turned laborious, like a cornered animal. This was a blood-thirsty man, hell-bent on revenge. It was almost a complete one-eighty of the state he had been in, all those years ago. But those eyes.. That dangerous glint hadn’t left his eyes... And it was the same fearful glint that had been in his eyes on that day... the day she had sworn to protect him.  
With firm resolve, she addressed her commander.  
“You shouldn’t get your hopes up, Sir..” He whirled around to face his companion. Her face was to the ground in front of her, with her blonde bangs covering her eyes. “Not when we can’t guarantee that he’s still alive..” Roy’s breath caught in his throat and he suppressed a shudder at the coldness of her words.  
He’s alive... I know he’s alive..  
He has to be..  
Squaring his shoulders against the chill of the underground cavern, he turned to face the doors once again, only looking back at her once. “Are you ready?”   
With a firm nod from his Lieutenant, Roy tensed his muscles and pushed hard on the solid wood. They gave way much more easily than he had anticipated and he quickly righted himself as his weight propelled him forward.  
He found himself standing on the threshold of a theatre large enough to swallow up Central Command. It was decorated in reds and golds, with thick maroon curtains hanging from the rafters on the stage and in the archways of the stage boxes. More doors lined the walls encompassing the large room, with five on each side and two more along the far wall, on either side of the large stage. The floor appeared to be hardwood, certainly of an expensive variety as every step he took further inside the large structure seemed to echo off of the high walls. It was so still inside of the ballroom.   
It was so quiet that he gave a slight start at the muted sound of creaking floorboards across the room, sounding as loud as the crack of thunder to him at this particular moment. The stage curtain gave an unusual flutter, as they would have had someone brushed up against them. Roy froze in his tracks, feeling his heart hammer loudly in his chest.  
Suddenly, the faint music, which had been slightly more pronounced once the doors had opened, cut off abruptly and the only thing he could hear was the breathing of himself and his Lieutenant. He also distinctly heard her draw back the hammer on her gun as she removed it from its holster.   
With the grace of a feline, a figure slowly emerged from beyond the red shroud. Eyes glowing with a fire brighter than any sun... strands of hair like golden silk flowing down around his shoulders.. the young teen stared across the room in bewilderment, mouth slightly agape. Like a mirror image of the boy, Mustang couldn’t seem to contain his shock. Although his hair was out of it’s usual braid, and his shirt was gone, there was no mistaking the boy in front of him.  
“Full... metal..” His legs seemed to have a mind of their own as they steadily moved towards the object of his desire. They felt heavy, as though weighed down, but nothing could stop him now that Edward was before him. Edward... he’s alive.. He’s here! I can’t believe it! The younger alchemist mimicked him and also started out, more hurriedly, towards the two soldiers. The smile on his face was wide and mocking, his eyes bright as he regarded his two friends.  
“General! Lieutenant! I was wondering when you were going to show up! Took you long enough!” Mustang choked over his words, struggling to get the air into his lungs through his shock. He was so close... If he only reached out his hand, he’d be able to touch him soon! He was really here..  
“Edward... why-?” He was so overwhelmed with happiness and relief... He didn’t notice the flash of contempt in the boy’s golden eyes. Suddenly, a strong grip on his arm forced him back from Edward  
“Sir!” Without hesitation, Hawkeye suddenly aimed her gun at the young alchemist and fired three shots at his exposed chest. The blade which had seemingly emerged straight from the skin on his flesh arm only managed to nick the General’s abdomen as the blonde cartwheeled away from the Lieutenant’s attack. Stunned, Mustang fell to the ground as Edward landed back on the raised platform of the stage. Chuckling slightly, he crossed his legs and smirked devilishly.  
“She’s sharp.” The boy supplied his baffled commander, sticking out his pink tongue to lap at the few droplets of blood which had managed to cling to his make-ship spear. Edward’s face was scrunched up into a dangerous expression, hardly making him look like the boy at all. Those fiery eyes burned with such ruthlessness and hatred that it had clouded over the irises and had turned them murky, almost black in color.  
“Wha-” Mustang scrambled to his feet, at a loss for words. Beside him, Riza was the image of hostility. Her expression was a mask of anger and neither the grip on her gun nor the aim she had locked on Edward had changed. “You’re not... Who are you?!” Unconsciously, he began to rub his thumb and middle finger together, daring the doppelgänger to test his patience further. If that wasn’t Edward... then where was he?   
A bright flash of light disrupted him from his musings, and he forced himself to keep his eyes glued on the person before him. To his astonishment, the sun-kissed skin turned pale and his limbs stretched slightly to extend his height by a few centimeters. Dark, stringy hair fell around a black headband around his forehead and shrouded his eyes as the golden color of his irises was consumed by an unnatural violet. When the light faded, the figure before him no longer contained any semblance of Edward Elric. The only thing that Mustang could see was a hideous monster... smiling at him as though they were old buddies.  
“Heh. Name’s Envy.” The shape-shifter sang. “Pleased to meet cha, General. Though I must admit I’ve become very familiar with your form over the past few weeks...” He gave the General a wink. “It always elicits such a heartbreaking reaction out of your dear subordinate. Speaking of..” Envy got an evil glint in his eye as he held up his object of interest.  
Dangling from his right hand, was Edward’s deformed automail. The sick bastard must have been holding it to his right side so the General wouldn’t suspect anything. Wires protruded from the underarm and elbow areas, and the fingers were twisted in such a fashion that Roy would have said they had to have been stepped on. The silver metal of the upper arm was stained crimson, and Roy realized with a shudder that what Envy held was not only the automail arm, but also its port.   
“Here. You can have this, if you’d like.” With a careless toss, the metal limb was lobbed across the room as though it weighed nothing at all. It landed with an echoing crash on the wood floor and a few flecks of dried blood broke off and scattered across the surface. Now that the detached limb of his young subordinate was before him, the General felt his body grow cold. To Roy’s utter horror, he could now see that bits of flesh still clung to the port of the automail...  
This... this monster...!  
“Where is he?! Where’s Edward?!” Mustang shouted, feeling his anger explode. The edges of his vision was tinted with red as he was bombarded with images of this.. thing... ripping off his subordinate’s limb from his body. The creature gave a childish pout and put his chin in his hand.  
“What? I’m not good enough for you?” He suddenly leapt off the stage, extending his hands in a show-off fashion. “How about now, then?” With another flash of light, Mustang averted his eyes, feeling the anger and shame bubbling up inside of him. When his eyes searched the other end of the room for the demon, he realized with a start that he had disappeared. In his place, though, standing in a worn Amestris uniform, was-  
“You know, if I recall correctly, you said your goal was to protect the people below you, didn’t you? How’s that turning out for you, Roy-Boy?” No... not him. Take the face of anyone else... But not him.. Not-  
“Maes...” he breathed, trying desperately to steady his breaths. He was choking on air, throat tightening in shock as he stepped back from the form of his deceased friend. Hughes only continued to smile at him. But, no... it wasn’t Hughes’ smile. It was Envy! The bastard! Messing with his mind like this!   
“Stop it,” Mustang seethed, growling low in his throat. Another flash of light signaled another of the beast’s transformations and when Mustang looked up again, he was met with the face of Jean Havoc. Riza gasped behind him, obviously thinking the same thing.   
Was there no limit?  
“Yeah, you know, he’s right, Chief..” The Second Lieutenant muttered around his cigarette, scratching his chin. “The poor kid kept holding onto life for the day you would come for him, but you never did. Pretty cold of you, really.” The General bowed his head and clenched his fists at his sides, feeling the rough cloth did into his palms.  
“Sto-” He choked on his words, the revelation hitting home. There was only so much this demon could make up, and he knew that what had just been said was the cold truth. Edward had been waiting for him.. and he had been too busy playing hooky from the front lines to care. He had abandoned the teen, and now...  
Now there was a chance that he might not be saved at all..  
Mustang bit his lip and blinked away the hot liquid in his eyes. He was angry- not only at Envy, but at himself.. The burn in his chest grew to be insurmountable and he grabbed at the material of his uniform with one of his gloved hands. He barely caught the transformative light, partially blocked out by his eyelids.  
“Although, you were nice enough to keep him company for his last few hours... ” Mustang gasped. That voice! With a start, he forced himself to look back up at the monster who was tormenting him so happily. But the person he saw... was himself.   
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Riza falter. Her gun lowered slightly and she took her bottom lip between her teeth as her eyebrows knit together with pain. Roy’s mind scrambled to connect the puzzle, as though everything was being done in a fog. He couldn’t think. His mind was still reeling from everything..  
‘You were nice enough to keep him company’.  
I... kept him... company...?  
The rage in his chest built as he replayed the spoken words in his mind. Finally, taking a few heated steps toward the beast, Mustang snapped.  
“What the hell did you do?!” His fingers pressed together, sending sparks flitting to the floor in his anger. Envy... this thing... had used his body.. Maybe to rip the automail out of Edward’s skin. What if Edward hated him? What if Edward had died thinking that he had been the one to torture him? After all, as Roy had fallen for the trick... wouldn’t someone else be susceptible to fall prey to Envy’s little “game”, as well?  
“Nothing that hasn’t already crossed your mind.” Envy answered with Roy’s voice. His own confident smug was thrown back at him, and his breath caught in his throat at the naturalness with which Envy seemed to play the role of him. Like he had been doing it for months..  
“Wha-” He began, but Envy was quick to cut him off.  
“I must say, General...” the demon mused, grinning victoriously as he circled around the room. “Your taste in flesh is admirable. He truly is a delicacy.. A sight to behold when he’s in the throws of passion, crying out your name-” No. Roy shut his eyes and shook his head in disbelief. He wouldn’t... he wouldn’t have gone so far..   
“-Stop.” There’s no way. No one would do that.. He refused to believe it!  
“Such a lusty little thing.” The monster chided. “He submitted to every single male that held him-”   
“-Stop it!” Jean, Maes, himself... who else had Edward been forced to endure? His fists began to shake, and the red seeped in to encompass the entirety of his vision. He was at his breaking point. There wasn’t much more he could take before-  
“Even his own brother.”  
-he snapped...  
.. Literally...  
In all of his pent up anger, the alchemized flame swelled and engulfed the entire ballroom in front of him. There was a short wail from the burning creature across the room, before the flames subsided. Stalking over to the anticipated corpse with fury, Mustang watched in disgust as Envy healed himself. The pale flesh replaced the old charred skin and within a few seconds Envy was back to his original form. With a leering grin, the homunculus stared Roy in the eye and slowly dragged his tongue over his lips, humming in delight.  
“YOU SON OF A BITCH!” The Flame Alchemist once again snapped at the creature, but Envy spun out of the line of fire and exited the room through a door on the back wall. Roy made to follow him, seething with rage, but the cry of his subordinate stopped him in his tracks.  
“Sir!” He turned to his Lieutenant, regarding her with eyes so full of pain and anger that she found herself unable to look away. He looked positively venomous. She knew that he was going to kill that green-haired creature who had hurt Edward so terribly..  
The problem was: she wasn’t sure whether she should allow it.  
“Go find Edward!” He shouted at her, motioning for her to do as she was told. “I’ll deal with him, myself.”  
As he turned his back to her and strode through the same door Envy had fled through, Riza felt her heart cleave in two, wondering if Roy Mustang would ever return to her.  
Or if, when he came back, he would be an animal, entirely.


	18. Chapter 18

**FINAL CHAPTER EVERYONE!! THANKS SO MUCH FOR STICKING WITH ME! <333 YOU ALL!!**

* * *

 

Chapter 18

First Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye

_July 14, 1914_  

**“There are wounds that never show on the body that are deeper and more hurtful than anything that bleeds.”**

**-Laurell K. Hamilton, Mistral’s Kiss**

 

The sound of her footsteps echoed off the high walls of the ballroom. Twelve doors, including the one that the General and homunculus had exited through; each with destinations unknown and, therefore, unfamiliar to her. Her eyes were cautious as she surveyed each one individually. Hearing the tell-tale explosions in the distance, and knowing she didn’t have much time, she quickly made her choice.

The Colonel had exited through the back...

She would be taking the second door on the right.

Shouldering open the door, gun at the ready, Hawkeye carefully peered inside. She entered quickly, swinging her gun around to point at the area which had not been visible through the crack in the door. Despite the fear that the shape-shifter would have hidden a crony in each of the surrounding rooms, there was no one to be seen.. She was alone.

She had emerged into what appeared to be a dining room, complete with a bay window and china cabinet- empty now that the dishes were laid out on the table. Each plate was covered in a thick layer of silver dust, and the room itself gave off a hollow feel. The low chandelier was dimly lit and cast eerie shadows all over the room, giving definition to the abundant cobwebs covering the furniture and high rafters. The atmosphere caused Riza’s chest to ache with emptiness. 

The entire city had looked as though it had been thrust underground in a matter of seconds... But, the buildings were all intact and even this china appeared undisturbed. Not to mention the fact that there was a confusing lack of people- corpses or not. 

What the hell had happened here?

Lowering her gun slightly, she turned to face the adjoining room to her right. There was no light shining beneath it to indicate occupancy, however, the handle of the door gave her reason to suspect that this other room had been in use recently. The brass of the knob lacked the ever-present cobwebs, indicating that something had disturbed them from this particular object and had been disturbing them often enough for new ones not to form.

Giving one last look over her shoulder, she pressed up against the door and slowly turned the handle, leaning slightly to force the entrance open with her weight.

Like the first room, the second one was also completely unoccupied. Nevertheless, her gun was posed and ready to shoot at any sudden attack that might befall her. She swept her gaze from side to side, taking in every detail she could before allowing herself to enter fully.

.. It was then that she felt the true coldness of the room.

It hit her like a ton of bricks. Her body immediately seized up, skin prickling against the frigid air, muscles tensing at the suddenness of it. Her breath came out as long clouds of body-heated air and she quickly wrapped her left arm around her torso to try and keep some heat in her body.

Why the hell was it so cold? Sure, she had noticed the incredibly slight change in temperature between the large ballroom and the dining room... but a change this drastic...! As she looked over the room again, Hawkeye noticed that there really wasn’t much to the room. It was a kitchen (that much she had expected before she had entered the room) painted pure white, with appliances to match. A stew pot sat atop an unlit stove, and the metal appeared to be corroded somewhat, the timeless silver giving way to crusted brown. Both the fridge and freezer were unopened... so the cold was still unexplained.

Shivering against the chill, she began to turn on her heel in order to search the rooms on the other side of the dining room when something caught her eye.

“The eye’s of a hawk”, Mustang had always proclaimed. Of course, her aim wasn’t something to be taken lightly. She was proud of the fact that she had claimed the title of “Best Marksman” during her time at the military academy by shooting a piece of straw in the air at a distance of forty meters. Her eyesight was sharp, and heightened by her extreme attention to detail. 

So why hadn’t she seen it sooner?

There, directly across the room from her, nestled between two shelving units brimming with boxed ingredients, was a door.

A slightly cracked door.

The latch was resting slightly on the door jamb, so it hadn’t appeared to be open at first... But the fact that it had been purposely shut with shut intent prickled the Lieutenant’s curiosity. Pulling back the hammer on her gun, she slowly tiptoed around the island countertop, faltering slightly when another alchemic explosion went off behind her.

Please, General... Please be okay..

The knob was bitter cold to her touch, so much so that her hand jerked back upon reflex the moment it made contact with her skin. She shook her head. Just a bit of cold...Nothing you can’t handle, Riza. Once again, her hand reached out and gripped the knob firmly, refusing to be deterred by anything other than her own death.

The door creaked loudly on its hinges, and her ears strained for the sound of any approaching footsteps. Minutes passed, and her grip on the gun had tightened to the point of pain, even to her frozen nerves. When she was sure no one was coming, her breath slowed and she curiously took a step forward. 

A staircase, presumably leading to the basement of this building. As her hand gripped the railing, the Lieutenant allowed herself to peer down into the darkness. The cold seeping up from the lower level gripped her heart with fear.

This cold... it wasn’t only the temperature that was dropping so rapidly around her. All the confidence and hope seemed to drain out of her completely, and her mood changed so suddenly to that of sadness and despair. It crept into her flesh- her very bones- and slowly became a part of her existence.

She felt as though she’d never be happy again.

Her breath came in short spurts as she struggled to keep her thoughts straight in the darkness which was consuming her mind. It was weighing her down, making it nearly impossible for her to find the will or energy to move. This cold... this darkness... it was the result of something truly horrible and evil.

If there was any place where Edward would be kept, it was on the other end of this frozen stairway. 

Keeping her ears peeled for any noises from above or below her, she cautiously slunk down the passageway, being mindful of her footing. The wooden stairs were old and creaked violently each time her foot landed the wrong way, alerting any possible threats of her arrival.

She emerged into a large room, certainly large enough to equal the area covered by the entire ground floor. There were no separate rooms, as far as she could tell, as she quickly twisted her body to both sides, searching for any threats. To her left, however, was a large mass shrouded in the darkness enveloping the room, completely indiscernible to her naked eye. Steadily she drew closer, her gun trained on the shape, as though waiting for it to spring at her.

The hairs on the back of her neck stood at full attention as she neared the large mass, and the Lieutenant was quick to cover her nose and mouth the moment the odor hit her. At first, Hawkeye had suspected the smell to be a toxic gas. But, upon further inspection, she realized it to be the smell of decay.

And now that she was close enough to make out the shape before her, Riza knew exactly where the stench was coming from.

Bodies... 

Ten or twenty of them, heaped carelessly onto one another, their shrunken eyes staring up at her in what must have been pain. A few of the females were missing one or both of their breasts, and other bodies seemed to be missing parts of their forearms or abdomens... The skin and muscle tissue in these areas had been cut out of the surrounding area, gunky brown pus oozing from the wounds. It was obvious that the victims had already been dead at the time of... harvesting... but that fact made Riza no less nauseous as she surveyed the scene in horror.

Whoever had been their carver, Envy, she supposed, hadn’t even taken the time to lift them up properly as he had dumped them into this pile. They’re backs were caked with the dust and grime they had swept from the dirtied floor in a neat, discernible pathway which led straight to-

Lieutenant Hawkeye was unable to stifle the gasp which tore from her lungs. There, chained to the stone wall, lying in a heap on the floor, motionless, was the Fullmetal Alchemist. His blonde hair and tanned skin were so covered in dried blood and dirt that she hadn’t even seen him as she had entered the basement. But, now..

“Edwar-” She whimpered, a sob tearing from her throat. The tears that wanted to slip down the planes of her face were frozen in terror at the scene before her. His automail left leg glimmered dimly in the shadowed room, the only part of him which didn’t appear broken in any way. She threw her gun to the ground in disregard to any concern other than the one so cruelly laid before her. “Edward!”

Her knees buckled as she approached him, and she could physically feel her face as it flitted through a dozen agonized emotions. Her hands reached out to him and tentatively skirted over his naked form, pausing to rest on his right cheek before jerking away suddenly. He’s so cold...

... He’s so still..

She felt her stomach clench at the notion that they hadn’t made it in time, and quickly wiped away a few stray tears which had slipped passed her stoic mask. He was thin.. He was entirely too thin.. The areas of his body which were covered in lacerations, bruises, or swollen infections vastly outnumbered those which were free from any damage. His skin was paper-thin and had a purplish tint to its paleness. The Lieutenant couldn’t decide whether it was from the fading bruises or from the below freezing temperature of the room he was being kept in.

‘Kept in’... like an animal..

His ‘leash’ was nothing more than a piece of dirtied rope, bearing crimson evidence of Edward’s early struggles. Though the blood on the rope had long ago dried, the wound which had stained it seemed as lively as ever, a thin line of ruby-red liquid trailing down his arm to drip off into a small puddle by his head. 

And his hair.. That wonderful mess of blonde-hair which had been his very trademark; boasting such a brilliant color gold as to make the sun envious of its strands.. It had been reduced to nothing more than a knotted mess of muted sand. The strands had lost their luster long ago, and the knots of hair were now matted with blood and other grime from his imprisonment. 

He was hardly recognizable..

“Edward....... Edward.. Edward!” She gasped, desperately shaking the shoulder of the arm which was tethered to the wall. She was so afraid to touch him... Afraid he would break further. Afraid he was actually gone. “Can you hear me?”

Though she hadn’t expected any response from the blonde, it still caused her chest to ache when there was no sign of movement from the young boy. Needing to feel some sense of reassurance, and simply needing to offer this tortured soul some human contact, she carefully scooped him up in her arms, being mindful of his injuries and restraints. Cradling his head to her breast, she finally heard the faint puffs of air being pushed through Edward’s nose in a faint effort to keep breathing. She could have cried from the overjoyed relief she felt.

He was alive!

.. Oh, God... He was alive...

His suffering was evident from the scowl on his otherwise motionless face. Why did he have to be a child? He was only fifteen, for God’s sake! Why did he have to feel so much pain and anguish in his life? Her grip on the boy tightened as a few more tears leaked out and froze to the ice crystals in his hair.

“I’m so sorry, Edward... If only we had been here sooner..” Feeling her heart jump into her throat, and unable to do anything but stare the boy in front of her, she quickly ripped the two-way communicator from her pocket and prayed her commander was listening.

“Sir, can you hear me?” She let go of the input button after she was finished speaking, a trick Kain had taught her to make swifter communication possible. The Lieutenant waited on pins and needles, with nothing but silence to keep her company. What if the General hadn’t managed to defeat Envy yet? What if there wasn’t a ‘yet’? What if Envy had won? 

The hand which held the receiver began to tremble at the thought and she jammed the input button down, nearly crushing it in her panic. 

“General! Are you there?” This time, after a few minutes, there was a bout of static emitted from the speaker, followed by an incredibly broken apart male voice.

“R-za..” Her heart flooded with relief. The General was alive.  “Ca-... -arely h-ar you-”  the man hissed. The transceivers must not be able to handle the distance between them; his voice was incredibly distorted, and managed to cut out at the worst of times.

When there was nothing more said by the General, the Lieutenant glanced down at the alchemist in her arms once more. She felt the panic in her chest rise again. How could it not when the boy she had grown to love as her own son practically looked like a corpse already? 

“Sir!” She choked out, gripping the device for dear life.

“...” The device sputtered violently, hissing like a cornered animal. There were faint jumbles of heated muttering, but the static hardly made the words seem human. Patiently, she waited... though she wasn’t certain for how long she could hold out with Edward being in the condition that he was in. 

He was so cold... and so pale.. She knew that they needed to get him to a hospital immediately, or else he would surely die. Another hiss of static was enough to distract her from the horrifying revelation, and she strained her ears for the General’s voice.

“... Hawkeye? -ou there?” His slightly panicked voice flew through the speaker, obviously not understanding what was wrong. She had to tell him. He needed to be here. Christ, she couldn’t handle this by herself! 

“I found him, sir.” She gasped into the receiver. After a short while, the General’s voice fluttered through the transmission, tangoing with the ongoing static.

“Talk slowly, Lieutena-... The reception s-ill isn’t great.” She looked down at the boy in her lap. Had his breath always been so faint, or was it simply her spiraling imagination making the situation seem worse? His lips were blue-tinted, and she could see that the inside of his parted mouth was bleeding languidly. From her position, she couldn’t be sure whether the the blood was coming from his mouth itself, or whether Edward was spitting it up due to internal bleeding.. Of course, she didn’t doubt that the alchemist had plenty of the latter, and that only made his condition all the more serious. Hawkeye prayed that the General hadn’t killed Envy just yet...

... After seeing what the shape-shifter had done, she wanted to be the one to finish him off..

“Edward. I found him, sir. I found him.” She gasped into the device, overwhelmed by the anger that had suddenly flown through her. The onslaught of this new emotion was almost enough to shroud her grief.

Almost.

“-dward?” His voice crackled over the line, thick with emotion. Although the amount of static was great, it wasn’t enough to mask the shock and disbelief which colored the General’s voice. 

“He’s alive. I’m not sure how long he’ll make it...” She regretted making the General worry, but he needed to know the gravity of their current situation. “Please hurry, sir. He’s in bad shape.”

“You’re get--g stronger. I must be getting closer to you.. -ere are you?” Mustang was right: the static was lessening some. She glanced overhead, hearing the sound of distant footsteps above her- probably from a different room than the one she was currently under.

“Basement. There’s a flight of stairs in the kitchen... to the right of where we came in.. They lead down to the room we’re in.” 

“I’m on my -ay... Stay put, Lieutenant.” She laughed to herself, scoffing at the notion that her commander actually believed her able to move. With the boy’s weight pressing down on her, Riza’s body acted somewhat as a seal to Edward’s most prominent wound, blocking the blood from leaving his body. The large stain which had formed on her light brown pants wasn’t at all bothersome to her... She just wanted the alchemist to get out of this hellhole alive.

“Couldn’t move if I wanted to, sir.” She mumbled into the receiver. Minutes passed before she heard footsteps overhead, and she passed the time trying to overcome her anxiety. When she had released the input button, she had carelessly allowed the communicator to fall the the ground. Wrapping her arms tighter around Edward’s unconscious form, the Lieutenant tentatively lifted his upper torso in the slightest amount. The wound surrounding his ruined automail port didn’t look good to her, so she wanted to keep as much of his weight off of the area as possible. 

The creaking of the stairs alerted Hawkeye to her Commander’s arrival and she involuntarily shuddered at his anticipated reaction. Although the room was dark, the only source of light streaming in dimly through the stairwell, but Roy Mustang’s disheveled appearance was plain as day to her.

His shirt was untucked, and the hem of it was singed slightly... perhaps from a miscalculation on his part. His eye no longer held any of the animalistic anger she had seen in them when they had separated, but now contained a sadness unlike any emotion she had seen in her Commander before. There was an area just below his left ribcage where the shirt gleamed with speckles of crimson but, as he seemed to be indifferent to the wound, she decided not to worry. 

He was breathing heavily, as though he had run the entire way... but she knew it had to be the raw emotion that was too much for him to handle. His obsidian eye was misty as it trained on her form, not even noticing the pile of corpses to his left as his gaze focused on the unmoving child in her arms. 

Almost as though he was moving through a heavy fog, his legs began to shuffle towards her.. It seemed as though he wanted to speak but the turbulent emotions surging inside of him just wouldn’t allow it. The Lieutenant knew that, from his position to her that the only thing he could see of the boy he loved so dearly were his mismatched legs- one twisting oddly in the wrong direction- and the frail left arm which was still tethered to the wall behind her. She clutched the boy tighter to her as Roy’s footsteps drew closer.

She would save him from the pain as long as she possibly could.

“Edward... ” He breathed, falling to his knees beside her. His breathing was hitched in places and that deep bass cracked with emotion as he whispered the younger alchemist’s name. Mustang reached out a hand and laid it on her upper right arm, tugging down slightly in an unspoken request to see the boy. 

“General...” Hawkeye choked on her words, unable to form the warning at the tip of her tongue. Roy..., she silently thought, a tear slipping passed her defenses at the man’s obvious distress. Roy... please.. He’s not okay..

“Let me see him.” He sighed, gulping down the rising bile in his throat as he eyed his subordinate’s contorted right leg. Hawkeye was still shielding Edward’s face and upper body by holding him tightly to her chest, but slowly began to relinquish her hold on the boy after being given the order. 

Roy Mustang was a hurricane of emotions. The first emotion he felt was undying relief. It was really Edward! He was safe, and nothing else mattered..

But upon taking a closer look at his subordinate, the General realized that there was absolutely no reason to celebrate..

Every inch of Edward’s skin was covered in purple blemishes or angry red lacerations. His stomach, shrunken in to a terrifying extreme, held a number of puncture wounds near or around his ribs. It was obvious that most, or perhaps all, of the boy’s ribs were broken in some way, the taut skin around them revealing the unnatural arrangement of the normally parallel bone structure. The closed eyes were red and swollen, indicating the old tear-trails which were no longer detectable to the naked eye, and Mustang noticed with a start that his right eye also had numerous lines of blood stemming out from beneath Edward’s eyelid.

“I do hope you get the chance to see my handiwork, General. I’ve really made a masterpiece out of him!” The homunculus had laughed, taunting the man into a state of unspeakable rage. “And don’t even think about taking him with you! He won’t ever be the same as he was! He’s mine now, and I made it so he won’t ever be able to forget me!”

Roy snapped, a trail of fire surging towards the giggling demon and combusting on impact. As before, Envy simply healed himself, skipping away in mirth.

“I’d get rid of those gloves if I were you! Now that Eddie’s afraid of fire, it won’t do him any good to be around a pyro!” 

He was right. Edward was probably afraid of fire and, frankly, Roy couldn’t blame him. A large burn marred the right side of his jaw, permanently scarring that part of his face as well as a few other places on his body where smaller patches of skin had been charred to extreme. Instinctively, the General reached out to caress the patch of skin along Edward’s jaw, heart aching at the helplessness he felt as he ran his fingers over the uneven surface. When the brunette’s touch did nothing to stir the blonde as it would have, had he been sleeping, Roy was forced to face the realization that he wasn’t asleep... but battling death in a comatose state.

His hand drew back from the teen’s face, clenching tightly in hopelessness. There was nothing he could do... They were too late, and now Edward would most likely never wake up again. His right arm trembled as he sought to contain his misery, finally allowing himself to take it out on Edward’s binding.

The arm, which was tied high above the boy’s head, looked as though it would snap in half even at the slightest touch.. As Roy, unthinkingly, incinerated the restraint around the alchemist’s wrist, gravity took over, sending the limb crashing to the floor. The resounding snap of Edward’s malnourished bone cracking in two echoed through the General’s heart.

“Oh my Go-” he couldn’t contain the sob which tore from his throat. Clamping a hand over his mouth, the Flame Alchemist doubled over in heart-wrenching guilt, trying hard to stifle his sobs. The situation seemed so hopeless... He had just broken Edward’s arm in half!

“Sir.” Though not spoken any louder than a whisper, the Lieutenant’s voice cut through his self-loathing and he glanced up at her, unashamed of the tears which continued to fall from his eyes. “We need to get him to a hospital right away...” Roy sadly turned his attention back to the boy in her arms. Would he even make it that far? 

As if Riza could somehow read his mind, a gentle hand was placed on his shoulder in reassurance. “He’s doing well all things considered,” she explained solemnly, continuing after a moment. “However, any further delay, and he might not make it..” 

The General nodded swiftly, before reaching out and tucking a bloodied lock of hair behind the boy’s ear. Though he knew they had to hurry and get out of that cursed place, Mustang couldn’t find the energy or will to move. He was so afraid...

... of hurting him..

... of breaking him..

... of Edward not making it, despite their efforts..

But, if they didn’t try, the blonde alchemist would die for sure. The thought alone made his heart ache with a grief he’d never experienced before. He shuddered at the notion of losing Edward again, and promptly made up his mind. 

“Alright. Here, let me carry him.” The Lieutenant seemed reluctant to let go of the boy in her arms, and he knew it was her maternal instinct kicking in. But she knew as well as he did that, should any sort of danger approach them, it would be she who would see it first. The first to see it and, therefore, the first to be able to administer an attack. He would trail behind her with Fullmetal, and help out where he could, but, for the most part, Hawkeye was the most capable out of the two of them.

“Be careful, sir... His wounds...” He didn’t need to be told how fragile his dear subordinate now was. He had experienced it first hand and was extremely averse to witness that sort of thing ever again. Roy removed his black trench coat, swaddling the younger alchemist in the warmed fabric like a newborn child. Being as gentle as possible, he arranged his arms beside hers underneath Edward’s form and steadily lifted the alchemist, bridal style into the air. 

It was a good thing he was being careful and going slow with the teen, otherwise he might have thrown him into the air! Mustang silently chastised himself for being so stupid.. Edward was severely malnourished and one of his metal limbs was gone! Of course, he would weigh so little!

... But that didn’t make the fact any less difficult to swallow. He was so goddamn thin... his arm fucking broke in half just because it had hit the ground... and he weighed so little that Roy could barely even feel his presence at all. Mustang had to bite his cheek to keep from weeping and falling back to the ground from sheer emotional pain. Hawkeye seemed to sense his distress and calmingly put a hand on the very center of his back as she led them out of the basement and up the stairwell.

They made it to the kitchen, the soft light from the window nearly blinding to them as they emerged from utter darkness. The white room seemed to mock them with its purity, remaining clean and uncontaminated through the murky situation. Roy Mustang refused to look down at the boy in his arms, knowing full well that the extent of Edward’s injuries would now be completely visible in the light. He swallowed hard, feeling hopelessness weigh down on his shoulders. He unconsciously tightened his grip on the blonde.

How could this happen? It feels like a dream..

And it did. As though the world he saw before him was but a memory, General Mustang walked forward through a fog. He was detached to the world around him... Completely uninterested in anything other than the slightly turned up nose which pressed against his cotton shirt.. or the bleached strands of hair that were nestled in the folds of his shirt... or the automail leg which occasionally collided with his bruising hip bone... or the red blossom that was forming on his shirt where it connected with what should have been his subordinate’s right arm..

Roy shook his head, struggling to keep his emotions in check. He’d never felt this shaken before.. Even when he had realized that the young girl he had callously influenced the Elric’s to leave behind in Resembool was the very same girl he had orphaned only a few years earlier, he had gotten through it. But then of course, Mustang-

tripped...

As the unexpected obstacle collided with his shin, the General surged forward, body moving with the weighted momentum of the teenager in his arms. For just a breath, everything stilled. Edward’s body hung in the air just beyond his reach, and Mustang frantically grabbed for him, fear gripping his heart.

And then they crashed to the ground.

Roy’s chin hit the floor with a sickening crack, the bone in his jaw fracturing with the force of the impact. Edward’s limp form skidded away from Mustang, his wounds ripping open against the hardwood as it grated against his skin. A trail of discolored blood coated the wooden floor behind him before his body finally came to rest a few meters away from the General. Roy reached out a hand towards his motionless subordinate, raising his body up on his elbows as he made to move towards him. 

A bare foot shot out of his periphery and stomped his hand down to the floor with a sickening crunch. Pain shot through Mustang’s hand and arm, ripping through his consciousness like a white-hot knife. His world was colored with stars as Envy’s weight pressed down harder onto his injured hand. The various nerves and bones twisted with the shift of the homunculus’s weight, grinding the appendage into the hard surface and causing Roy’s vision to blur slightly.

“Oh, I’m sorry, General. Am I a little less dead than you hoped?” The sneering voice came from above his head, and he directed his gaze at the monster, wishing desperately to alchemize him to charcoal where he stood. How the hell was this thing still alive?! “Sorry to disappoint yo-”

The creature was abruptly cut off as a stream of bullets embedded themselves into his torso.

“Ack!” Envy’s surprise was evident as he took a few steps backward to balance himself. His wounds were already healing themselves, red sparks of electricity shooting out from within the newly-made holes to return the skin to a single, smooth surface. The homunculus brushed his hands over the mended area, as if making sure his regeneration ability had done its job, before narrowing his eyes dangerously at the hostile Lieutenant, her gun still aimed at his chest.

“So, you’re a homunculus, are you?” She asked her glowering target, hardly fazed by the fact that her lethal bullets did little to deter him. “Well, I have to admit: that’ll make things a bit more challenging. However, I think you’ll find that you’re still at the disadvantage!” Before Envy had the chance to react, she put a bullet between his eyes.

“Agh!” He scrambled to dodge the attack, streaking across the room to hide behind a large pillar in order to protect himself from the Lieutenant and her gun. He couldn’t have made a easier target, however, as the injured General suddenly sprang to his feet and sent a whirlwind of fire in the creature’s direction. The pillar, along with a large section of the upper balcony, exploded in a cloud of red ash, bits of destroyed marble flying in various directions across the room.

Envy crawled from the billowing smoke on his hands and knees, coughing violently as the thick smoke continued to fill his lungs. His outfit was still smoldering in some areas and his regeneration abilities seemed to be moving more lethargically that they had been earlier. If the homunculus was getting tired already, then it wouldn’t be any fun! The soldiers were only just warming up, now that they had Edward’s condition to fuel their undying hate.

“You collected your earnings before the game was finished, homunculus. And now, we’re going to make certain you lose!” Mustang roared, grinding his thumb and forefinger together and sending another wave of fire at the creature. Envy quickly dodged. He tucked in his limbs and rolled away from the irate alchemist before springing to his feet again and running across the room. Roy sent attack after attack after the green blur, but he was millimeters off-target on each one.. a fact which only frustrated him further.

Without warning, the demon suddenly turned on his heel and lunged at the alchemist. Mustang was taken by surprise and faltered. His breath was cut short as large, rope-like vines wrapped around his torso. They quickly pinned his arms to his sides, pulling his body together with a force strong enough to crack a few of his ribs. It was too tight! He couldn’t move! He couldn’t breathe!

Envy laughed gleefully, and swung his body around in a complete circle, the momentum sending the General flying across the room. These vines... were they.. attached?! 

His senses began to blur together. Envy’s laugh consumed all other sounds. The rusty stench of blood filled his nose and covered his tongue. His vision was taken over by the sight of Envy’s large, green vine-arms. All he could feel was the impact as he was sent crashing into another immovable surface.

His world was filled with pain.

Everything hurt. 

He was going to die...

He was going to die... here... like this..

Another movement made by the homunculus sent the General through a stone pillar and his world went stark white. The wind was knocked out of him and suddenly he was unable to catch his breath. The vines... the vines were too tight!

I’m going to die...

I’m going to die...

I’m.. -

He slammed onto the ground with a sickening crack, and the appendages quickly pinned him to the floor. Envy walked over to his prey, eyes glinting mischievously in the glow of the slowly dying flames flickering around the ballroom.

“Like I told you before, General: I don’t die so easy like the rest of you pathetic worms. I’m above you in every way!” He was standing directly over him now, and Roy could smell his foul breath as it wafted across his face. His sharpened teeth gleamed a magnificent white in the fire light as he flashed a sadistic smirk down at the General. It reminded Roy of a predator going in for the kill.

A quick glance at his surroundings told him that Hawkeye was in just as bad of a predicament as he. She was pinned to the floor, her gun lying a few meters away, completely useless to her. She seemed to be suffering from some broken bones, too, and had a large gash on her forehead where blood was languidly trickling from. Her brown doe eyes pleaded back at him. The situation was hopeless. They couldn’t fight like this!

His train of thought ended abruptly as a glint of silver flashed across his right periphery. There, lying across the floor, lay the discarded and motionless form of his precious subordinate. The flickering fire light cast eerie shadows onto Edward’s automail, making it appear nearly jet black. The sharp contrast with his ghostly pale skin made it seem as though the automail leg wasn’t even there. From his position, Roy could barely make out the uneven rise and fall of Edward’s chest.

The boy was in terrible shape..

If they didn’t pull him out of this situation, then..

No.

They couldn’t give up..

Not when Alphonse thought his brother to be dead. Not when he still had so many people who were willing to put their trust in him. Not while he still had the strength to take another painful breath... Not like this..!

Summoning his strength, the General let out a fierce cry of hatred and rage and allowed his alchemy to surge from his body. Never before had he allowed his flames to be so out-of-control. They tore from his body like angry red knives, lashing out in all directions at once. His emotions enveloped him, making his chest feel tight even after the flames had cut through the vines, freeing the two soldiers. 

Hawkeye immediately began unloading her gun into the writhing homunculus as soon as she was free. It was obvious that Roy’s attack had been unexpected, and it appeared as though Envy’s regenerative abilities were waning in their effectiveness.

Mustang watched the scene in awed fascination. Watching the Lieutenant transform from his docile subordinate into a one-woman war machine never ceased to amaze him. And as he witnessed bullet after bullet being embedded into the demon’s flesh, he suddenly realized that this was the end. 

Envy was truly dying..

His screams echoed through the ballroom as he was continuously bombarded again and again with the woman’s attacks. The red lightening seemed to flicker dully across some of the wounds a few times, but there was never any reparations made after they disappeared. Hawkeye’s eyes never left the homunculus’s form. They were wide and filled with undying anger and hatred for her victim, even as he crawled pitifully across the floor screaming in agony. She never faltered; never flinched..

Trusting his Lieutenant to take care of the rest, Mustang quickly turned on his heel and ran to Edward’s side. He had been tossed around pretty harshly, and with the condition that his body was in...

... Well, there was no telling if he was even still alive..

The General quickly scolded himself for thinking so negatively. As he knelt down by the boy’s side, the rise and fall of his chest was apparent (though not immediately) and his pulse languidly pressed up against the skin when Roy lightly pushed down (though irregular and weaker than before).

But he was alive... and that’s all that mattered now.

Edward was alive.

Being sure not to jostle the teen too much, Roy gently wrapped his arms along Edward’s underside and propped him up against the wall. He caught a lock of hair as it fell out of place and tucked it back behind the boy’s ear before he caught himself. 

The gunshots were almost deafening as they echoed off of the high walls of the ballroom and coupled with Envy’s screaming. Mustang could distinctly hear the tell-tale sound of Envy transforming his body, most likely in effort to fight back before he succumbed to an eternal sleep, but as the rhythm in Riza’s shots never once faltered, Roy was able to tune it all out as background noise. 

He briefly looked over his own injuries, making sure that the bleeding on his torso hadn’t soaked through his makeshift dressing. It would be a problem if he himself wouldn’t be able to support Edward’s weight and carry him out of this hellhole. If he fell prey to his own injuries... then there was no hope at all.

Deeming the bandage to be sufficient in holding the wound together, he lifted his lone eye to look over the blonde.

His skin had lost the bluish hue it had appeared to have in the basement, and now his subordinate was stark white, nearly blending in with the hard marble pillar behind him. His face was sprouting a nasty bruise on his left cheek, where Mustang supposed the bone had connected with the floor after they had crashed to the ground. 

I hurt him again..

What’s the point of me coming to save him when all I fucking do is hurt him more?! 

His vision blurred slightly as his eye roamed over Edward’s abused torso, locking on the right side of his chest where his automail should have been. Looking at the torn skin around the port and the fresh crimson blossom staining the crude bandages adorning the wound, he was reminded of the arm which Envy had thrown his way not hours before.

His stomach gave a painful lurch. Roy doubled over, gagging slightly at the memory of the bloodied metal arm. The pieces of skin clinging to the artificial limb... it had been _ripped_ out of Edward’s arm..

_He must have screamed_ , Roy supposed. Mustang knew that Edward would have clung to his strong facade as long as he possibly could have but, eventually, the boy had to have succumbed to the insurmountable pain. The emotional pain of unending loneliness, the psychological pain of having his loved ones be the ones to torture him, the physical pain of being raped daily.. Oh, had Envy made that point clear to him! The bastard-! 

Mustang closed his eyes against the onslaught of tears. Why Edward? Why did he have to suffer through life when he never did anything to ask for such horrible treatment? He was too _young_. He had _always_ been too damn young. Too young to lose his parents. Too young to attempt the forbidden. Too young to carry so much guilt and self-loathing on his shoulders. Too young for automail. Too young for the military. Too young for this pain..

No... it wasn’t that Edward was too young.. 

It was that he was too innocent. Too selfless of a human being to ever be deserving of such a horrible life. And when Roy reflected back on everything, it pained him to realize that he had been the sole cause of nearly half of the horrible injustices that had befallen the boy. How can I possibly forgive myself for causing this child so much pain? How can I say that I have the _right_ to love him when all I’ve ever done is _hurt_ him _?_

His eye skimmed over the injuries he himself had caused once again. The bruise seemed much darker now, and Roy was almost certain that part of the cheekbone had shattered upon impact. Before he could stop it, a sob tore from his throat and the tears fell freely.

_I did this.._

_If I had just_ been there _for him... I could have.._

Another strangled sob broke from his throat, louder this time, and he didn’t bother to wipe away the tears as they trailed down his cheeks. Roy reached out a gloved hand and gently caressed Edward’s unconscious face. Even in sleep, where he could feel no pain, the alchemist’s face was full of agony..

He didn’t deserve this..

“Sir.” He jumped out of his skin as the soft voice sounded behind him. Hawkeye was there, as he turned, watching him with calculating eyes. Her forehead was still bleeding, a trail of red staining her cheeks, lips, and chin as it traveled down her tired face. Behind her, lay Envy in a pile of ruin. His body had already begun the decomposition process, and the bones in his skeleton were caving in as their hard structures slowly evaporated into the air. 

Mustang’s shoulders sagged with relief. He had expected it to be over quickly... but this..

“You startled me.” He said to her, quickly wiping away his tears and looking up with kind eyes. “Are you alright?” In response, the Lieutenant brought a hand up to her forehead, the other replacing her gun in its holster. When she drew the hand away and noticed the crimson liquid staining her fingertips, she appeared unfazed and indifferent to it.

“Just a bit dizzy...” she murmured, sighing slightly. The General motioned for her to sit beside him, patting a spot on the ground to the left of him. He then ripped off a piece of cloth from his ruined shirt and wound it around her head, covering her injury. It would eventually fall off, he knew, and it probably wasn’t the most sterile of options, but it was all they had.

Every minute they spent down here was another minute of Edward’s life flying down the drain. And every second of his life needed to be treated like the last..

He readjusted his arm around Edward, trying to position the boy so that he was “piggy-back” on Roy’s back, however he couldn’t get it quite right. The way he had him now, Edward would surely slip right off!

“We have to get out of here. Hurry up and help me!” Not one to argue, Hawkeye quickly aided her C.O. in adjusting the young alchemist’s position on the elder’s back.  It wasn’t the best for his injuries, but it would keep the blood flowing throughout his body instead of coming to rest at his heart. At all costs, they needed to keep his heart beating..

Edward was going to make it..

After all he had gone through... after all they had witnessed..

... He just had to..

  **\------ to be continued------**

 

**STAY TUNED FOR THE SEQUEL! (probably won't be posted for while... school is getting pretty rough XP)**


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